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/ 

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

NUTS TO CRACK : 

OR, 
OF 

©xforir nntr ©amftrttrge gbdjolars. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF « FACETIAE CANTABRIGIENSES, V 

ETC. ETC. ETC. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH DESIGNS, BY 





n A passing ingenious Jesuit, who is omnipotent in punning. '-' 
"Omne tulit Pun-Tom." — Gradls ad Cant. 

SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. 

LONDON : 
A. H. BAILY AND CO., 83, CORNHILL 



MDCCCXXXV. 






LONDON ! 
PRADBURY AND BTAN8, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIAR 
(LATE T. DAVI90N.) 



PREFACE. 



Though I intend this preface, prelude, or 
proem shall occupy but a single page, and be a 
facile specimen of the multum in parvo school, 
I find I have so little to say, I might spare 
myself the trouble of saying that little, only it 
might look a little odd (excuse my nibbing my 
pen) if, after writing a book, which, by the 
way, may prove no book at all, I should intro- 
duce it to my readers, — did I say " Readers ? " 
— what a theme to dilate upon ! But stop, stop, 
Mr. Exultation, nobody may read your book, 
ergo, you will have no readers. Humph ! I 
must nib my pen again. Cooks, grocers, 
butchers, kitchenmaids, the roast ! Let brighter 
visions rise : methink I see it grace every room 
Peckivater round : methink I see, wherever 
mighty Tom sonorous peals forth his solemn 
" Come, come, come ! " the sons of Oxon fly to 



VI PREFACE. 

Tallboys store, or Parker's shelves, and cry 
" the Book, the Book ! " Methink I see in 
Granta's streets a crowd for Deighton's and for 
Stevenson's — anon, "the Book, the Book," they 
cry, "Give us the Book ! " " Quips, Quirks, 
and Anecdotes ? " u Aye, that's the Book ! " 
And, then, methink I see on Camus' side, or 
where the Isis by her Christ Church glides, or 
Charwell's lowlier stream, methink I see (as 
did the Spanish Prince of yore a son of Sala- 
manca beat his brow) some togaed son of Alma 
Mater beat, aye, laugh and beat his brow. 
And then, like Philip, I demand the cause? 
And then he laughs outright, and in my face he 
thrusts a book, and cries, " Sir, read, read, read, 
ha, ha, ha, ha ! " and stamps and laughs the 
while ; — and then, ye gods, it proves to be the 
Book, — Quips, Quirks and Anecdotes — ha, ha, 
ha, ha ! I cry you mercy, Sirs, read, read, read, 
read ! From Eton, Harrow, Winchester, 
and West, come orders thick as Autumn leaves 
e'er fell, as larks at Dunstable, or Egypt's 
plagues. The Row is in commotion, — all the 
world rushes by Amen Corner, or St. PauVs : 
how like a summer-hive they go and come : the 
very Chapter's caught the stirring theme, and, 
like King James at Christ Church, scents a 



PREFACE. Vll 

hum *. E'en Caxton's ghost stalks forth to 
beg a tome, and Wyrikyn's shroud in vain pro- 
tests his claims. " There's not a copy left," 
cries IVhitfs or Long's, as Caxton bolts with the 
extremest tome, and Wynkyn, foiled, shrinks 
grimly into air, 

Veird in a cloud of scarce black-letter lore. 

Had Galen's self, sirs, ab origine, or iEscula- 
pius, or the modern school of Pharmacopoeians 
drugged their patients thus, they long ago, aye, 
long ago y had starved; your undertakers had been 
gone extinct, and churchyards turned to gambol- 
greens, forsooth. Mirth, like good wine, no 
help from physic needs : — blue devils and ennui ! 
ha, ha, ha, ha ! Didst ever taste, champagne ? 
Then laugh, sirs, laugh, — "laugh and grow 
fat," the maxim's old and good : the stars sang 
at their birth — " Ha, ha, ha, ha ! " I cry you 
mercy, sirs, the Book, the Book, Quips, Quirks, 
and Anecdotes. Oxonians hear ! " Ha, ha, 
ha, ha ! " Let Granta, too, respond. What 

* Sir Isaac Wake says, in his Rex Platonicus, that when 
James the First attended the performance of a play in the Hall of 
Christ Church, Oxford, the scholars applauded his Majesty by 
clapping their hands and humming. The latter somewhat sur- 
prised the royal auditor, but on its being explained to signify 
applause, he expressed himself satisfied. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

would you more? the Book, sirs, read, read, 
read. 

'Tis true, my work's a diamond in the rough, 
and that there still are sparkling bits abroad, by 
wits whose wages may not be to die, would make 
it, aye, the very Book of Books ! Let them, 
anon, to Comhill wend their way (p.p.) to cut 
a figure in Ed. sec. 3d. or 4th, from Isis or from 
Cam. What if they say, as Maudlin Cole of 
Boyle, because some Christ-Church wits adorned 
his page with their chaste learning, "'Tis a 
Chedder cheese, made of the milk of all the 
parish" — Sirs, d'ye think Vd wince and call 
them knave or fool ? Methink I'd joy to spur 
them to the task ! Methink I see the mirth- 
inspired sons of Christ- Church and the rest, 
penning Rich Puns, Bon-mots, and Brave 
Conceits, for ages have, at Oxon, "borne the 
bell," and oft the table set in royal roar. Me- 
think I see the wits of Camus, too, go laughing 
to the task, — and then, methink, O ! what a 
glorious toil were mine, at last, to send them 
trumpet-tongued through all the world ! 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Was Oxford or Cambridge first Founded ? . .1 

Origin of this celebrated Controversy . 5 

Died of Literary Mortification . . .6 

Sir Simon D'Ewes on Antiquity of Cambridge . . 7 

Gone to Jerusalem . . . . .8 

Cutting Retort — Liberty a Plant . . 10 

A Tailor surprised — Declining King George, &c. . 11 

Classical Jeu D' Esprit — Trait of Barrow . 12 

Inveterate Smokers . . . . .13 

Lover of Tobacco — A Wager, &c. . 14 

Newton's Toast — Piety of Ray . . .15 

Devil over Lincoln — Radcliffe's Library . 16 

Traits of Dr. Bathurst— His Whip, &c. . . 17 

Smart Fellows . . .' . 18 

Epigram — Tell us what you can't do ? . .19 

First Woman introduced into a Cloister . 20 

Cambridge Scholar and Ghost of Scrag of Mutton . 21 

Comparisons are odious . . . .23 

Jaunt down a Patient's throat — Difference of Opinion . 24 

Petit-Maitre Physician — Anecdote of Porson . . 25 

Ov To5e ovtf aAAo — Aliquid — Di-do-dum . . 26 

Bishop Heber's College Puns . . 27 

Effect of Broad -wheeled Waggon, &c. . .28 

Queen Elizabeth and the Men of Exeter College, &c. . 29 

Oxonians Posed — Lapsus Grammatics . . 30 



CONTENTS. 



Latin be Used — Habit — Concussion 

Comic Picture of Provost's Election 

Sir, Dominus, Magistri, Sir Greene 

Husbands beat their Wives — Attack on Ladies 

Doings at Merton — Digging Graves with Teeth 

Doctor's Gratitude to Horse — John Sharp's Rogue 

Said as how you'd See — Much Noise as Please 

Mad Peter-house Poet — Grace Cup 

Tertiavit — Capacious Bowl — Horn Diversion . 

Bibulous Relique — Christian Custom — Feast Days 

Walpole at Cambridge — College Dinner 16th Century 

Black Night — Force of Imagination — Absent Habits 

Anecdotes of Early Cambridge Poets 

Cromwell's Pear-tree, &c. 

Stung by a B — Dr. P. Nest of Saxonists . 

Pleasant Mistake — Minding Roast 

College Exercise — Bell — Fun — Tulip-time 

King of Denmark — King William IV. visit Cambridge 

Queen Elizabeth's Visit to Oxford and Cambridge 

First Dissenter in England 

First English Play extant by Cambridge Scholar 

Christ-Church Scholars Invented moveable Scenes 

James I. at Oxford and Cambridge 

Divinity Act — Latin Comedy . 

Case of Precedence — Smothered in Petticoats 

Brief Account of Boar's Head Carols . 

Celebration of, at Queen's College, Oxon 

Cleaving Block — Being little . 

Traits of Porson — Wakefield — Clarke 

Blue Beans — University Bedels — Dr. Bentley 

Great Gaudy All-Souls Mallard . 

Oxford Dream — Compliments to Learned Men 

Point of Etiquette — Value of Syllable 

Cocks may Crow— Profane Scoffers 

Jemmy Gordon — Oxford Wag 

Cambridge Frolics — Black Rash 

Old Grizzle Wig — Shooting Anecdotes 



PAGE 

31 

32 

34 

36 

37 

38 

40 

42 

44 

46 

50 

53 

56 

61 

65 

67 

68 

70 

72 

74 

75 

78 

80 

86 

89 

90 

92 

97 

98 

104 

106 

115 

120 

121 

122 

12,7 

130 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Bishop Watson's Progress — Paley, &c. 

Oxford Hoax — Good Saying 

Walpole a Saint — Oxford famous for its Sophists, &c 

Laconic Vice — Usum Oxon — Pert Oxonians 

Corrupted Latin Tongue — Surpassed Aristotle, &c. 

Set Aristotle Heels upwards — Art of Cutting 

Soldiers at Oxford Disputation, &c. 

Captain Rag — Dainty Morsels 

Answered in Kind — Powers of Digestion . 

Inside Passenger — Traits of Paley 

Lord Burleigh and Dissenters — Sayings 

Porson — Greek Protestants at Oxon. 

Cambridge Folk — Gyps — Drops of Brandy — Dessert 

for Twenty, &c. 
Parr's Eloquence — Address — Vanity, &c. 
Trick of the Devil — Three Classical Puns 
Acts — Pleasant Story — Epigram — Revenge 
Mothers' Darlings — Fathers' Favourites 
Iter Academicum — A Story 
Anecdotes of Freshmen 
Lord Eldon — Whissonsett Church 
Boots — Yellow Stockings — Fashion Hair . 
Barber dressed — First Prelate wore Wig 
Boots, Spurs, &c, prohibited at Oxon 
Whipping, &c. — Flying Cambridge Barber 
Isthmus Suez — Drink for Church 
Good Appetite — College Quiz — The Greatest Calf 
Like Rabelais — Ambassadors King Jesus at Oxon 
Effort Intellect— Dr. Hallifax— Dr. Tucker 
Distich — Skeleton Sermons — Paid First 
In the Stocks — Hissing — Posing — Gross Pun 
Family Spintexts — Alcock — Barrow, Parr, &c. 
Three-headed Priest — Burnt to Cinder 
Cantab Invented Short-hand — Humble Petition of Ladies 
Turn for Humour — Repartees — All over Germany 
Oxford and Cambridge Rebuses 
Something in your way — Duns — Out of Debt 



page 
133 

141 
143 
146 
147 
149 
150 
152 
154 
157 
166 
167 

169 

173 

176 

178 

181 

184 

186 

188 

190 

194 

199 

200 

201 

203 

205 

206 

208 

209 

212 

216 

217 

219 

221 

223 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
Queering a Dun — Gray and Warburton . . 226 

Canons of Criticism — Bishop Barrington . . . 228 

Pulpit Admonition — Simplicity of great Minds . 230 

Singularities — Triple Discourse . . . 230 

Traits of Lord Sandwich — Lapsus Linguae . . 235 

Oxford and Cambridge Loyalty — Clubs, &c. . .236 

Retrogradation — On-dit . . . .241 

Worcester Goblin — Cambridge Triposes . . . 243 

Records, of Cambridge Triposes — Wooden Spoon — Poll — 

Conceits of Porson, Vince, &c. . . . 244 

Classical Triposes — Wooden Wedge — Disney's Song . 251 
A dreadful Fit of Rheumatism .... 253 
Parr an Ingrate — Le Diable — Critical Civilities . . 254 
Sir Busick and Sir Isaac again — Cole Deum . .256 

Freshman's Puzzle . . . . 257 

Sly Humourist — Noble Oxonian — Oxford Wag — Person 

of Gravity . . . . .258 

The Enough . . . . . . 260 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Cambridge Scholar and Ghost of Scrag of Mutton 

Force of Imagination .... 

Oxford Scholar slaying the Boar 

Point of Etiquette .... 

Our Billy's Comb — See Dainty Morsels 

The Worcester Goblin . 



21 

53 

90 

120 

153 

243 



^ 



> 






OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 
NUTS TO CRACK : 

OR, 

©tups, ©tu'rfe, ^necirote, anfc JfaMe. 



WAS OXFORD OR CAMBRIDGE FIRST FOUNDED? 

"Oxford must from all antiquity have been either somewhere 
or nowhere. Where was it in the time of Tarquinius Priscus ? 
If it was nowhere, it surely must have been somewhere. Where 
was it ? " Facetiae Cant. 

Here is a conundrum to unravel, or a nut to 
crack, compared to which the Dcedalean Labyrinth 
was a farce. After so many of the learned have 
failed to extract the kernel, though by no means 
deficient in what Gall and Spurzheim would call 
jawitiveness (as their writings will sufficiently show), 
I should approach it with w fear and trembling," did 
I not remember the encouraging reproof of " Queen 
Bess" to Sir Walter Raleigh's " Fain would I climb 
but that I fear to fall" — so dentals to the task, come 
what may. A new light has been thrown upon the 
subject of late, in an unpublished " Righte Merrie 

B 



2 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Comedie," entitled " Trinity College, Cambridge/ 1 
from which I extract the following 

JEU DE POESIE. 

When first our Alma Mater rose, 

Though we must laud her and love her, 
Nobody cares, and nobody knows, 

And nobody can discover : 
Some say a Spaniard, one Cantaber, 
Christen' d her, or gave birth to her, 
Or his daughter — that's likelier, more, by far — 
Though some honour king Brute above her. 

Pythagoras, beans-consuming dog, 

('Tis the tongue of tradition that speaks), 
Built her a lecture-room fit for a hog *, 

Where now they store cabbage and leeks : 
And there mathematics he taught us, they say, 
Till catching a cold on a dull rainy day, 
He packed up his tomes, and he ran away 
To the land of his fathers, the Greeks. 



* The School of Pythagoras is an ancient building, situated 
behind St. John's College, Cambridge, wherein the old Grecian, 
says tradition, lectured before Cambridge became an university. 
Whether those who say so lie under a mistake, as Tom Hood 
would say, I am not now going to inquire. At any rate, " sic 
transit," the building is now a barn or storehouse for garden stuff. 
Those who would be further acquainted with this relique of by- 
gone days, may read a very interesting account of it extant in the 
Library of the British Museum, illustrated with engravings, and 
written by a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, to which society, 
says Wilson, in his Memorabilia Catabrigice, " it was given 
by Edward IV., who took it from King's College, Cambridge. 
It is falsely supposed to have been one of the places where the 
Croyland Monks read lectures. 17 



NUTS TO CRACK. J 

But our Alma Mater still can boast, 
Although the old Grecian would go, 
Of glorious names a mighty host, 

You'll find in Wood, Fuller, and Coe : 
Of whom I will mention but just a few — 
Bacon, and Newton, and Milton will do : 
There are thousands more, I assure you, 
Whose honours encircle her brow. 

Then long may our Alma Mater reign, 

Of learning and science the star, 
Whether she were from Greece or Spain, 

Or had a king Brute for her Pa ; 
And with Oxox, her sister, for aye preside, 
For it never was yet by man denied, 
That the world can't show the like beside, — 

Let echo repeat it afar ! 

It matters little whether we sons of Alma Mater 
sprung- from the loins of Pythagoras, Cantaber. 
or the kings Brute and Alfred. They were all 
respectable in their way, so that we need not blush, 
" proh pudor," to own their paternity. But let us 
hear what the catting writer of Terra Filius has 
to say on the subject. " Grievous and terrible has 
been the squabble, amongst our chronologers and 
genealogists concerning 

THE PRECEDENCE OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 

What deluges of Christian ink have been shed on 
both sides in this weighty controversy, to prove 
which is the elder of the two learned and most 
ingenious ladies ? It is wonderful to see that they 
should always be making themselves older than they 
b 2 



4 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

really are ; so contrary to most of their sex, who 
love to conceal their wrinkles and grey hairs as much 
as they can ; whereas these two aged matrons are 
always quarrelling for seniority, and employing 
counsel to plead their causes for 'em. These are Old 
Nick Cantalupe and Caius on one side, and Bryan 
Twynne and Tony Wood on the other, who, with 
equal learning, deep penetration, and acuteness, 
have traced their ages back, God knows how far: 
one was born just after the siege of Troy, and the 
other several hundred years before Christ; since 
which time they have gone by as many names as 
the pretty little bantling at Rome, or the woman 
that was hanged t'other day in England, for 
having twenty-three husbands. Oxford, say they, 
was the daughter of Mempricius, an old British 
king, who called her from his own name, Caer 
Memprick, alias Greeklade, alias Leechlade, alias 
Rhidycen, alias Bellositum, alias Oxenforde, alias 
Oxford, as all great men's children have several 
names. So was Cambridge, say others, the daughter 
of one Cantaber, a Spanish rebel and fugitive, who 
called her Caergrant, alias Cantabridge, alias Cam- 
bridge. But, that I may not affront either of 
these old ladies," adds this facetious but sarcastic 
writer, " I will not take it upon me to decide which 
of the two hath most wrinkles * * * *. Who 
knows but they may be twins. 5 ' 

Another authority, the author of the History of 
Cambridge, published by Ackermann, in 1815, says, 
that 



NUTS TO CRACK. 5 

THIS CELEBRATED CONTROVERSY 

Had its origin in 1564, when Queen Elizabeth 
visited the University of Cambridge, and " the 
Public Orator, addressing Her Majesty, embraced 
the opportunity of extolling the antiquity of the 
University to which he belonged above that of 
Oxford. This occasioned Thomas Key, Master of 
University College, Oxford, to compose a small 
treatise on the antiquity of his own University, 
which he referred to the fabulous period when the 
Greek professors accompanied Brute to England , 
and to the less ambiguous era of 870, when Science 
was invited to the banks of the Isis, under the 
auspices of the great Alfred. A MS. copy of this 
production of Thomas Key accidentally came into 
the hands of the Earl of Leicester, from whom it 
passed into those of Dr. John Caius (master and 
founder of Gonvile and Caius Colleges, Cambridge), 
who, resolving not to be vanquished in asserting 
the chronological claims of his own University, 
undertook to prove the foundation of Cambridge 
by Cantaber, nearly four hundred years before 
the Christian era. He thus assigned the birth of 
Cambridg-e to more than 1200 anterior to that 
which had been secondarily ascribed to Oxford by 
the champion of that seat of learning; and yet it 
can be hardly maintained that he had the best of 
the argument, since the primary foundation by the 
son of iEneas, it is evident, remains unimpeached, 
and the name of Brute, to say the least of it, is 
quite as creditable as that of Cantaber. The work 



6 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

which Dr. John Caius published, though under a 
feigned name, along- with that which it was written 
to refute, was entitled, ' De Antiquitate Catabri- 
giensis Academice, libri ii. in quorum 2do. de Oxo- 
niensis quoque gymnasii antiquitate disseritur, et 
Cantabrigiense longe eo antiquius esse definitur, 
Londinense Author e : adjunximus assertionem anti- 
quitatis Oxoniensis Academice ah Oxoniensi quodam 
annis jam elapsis duobus ad reginam conscriptam 
in qua docere conatur, Oxoniense gymnasium Can- 
tabrigiensi antiquius esse : ut ex collatione facile 
intelligas, utra sit antequior. Excusum Londinu 
A.D. 1568, Mense Augusto, per Henricum Byn- 
nenum, 12mo/" And is extant in the British 
Museum. As may. well be supposed by those 
who are acquainted with the progress of literary 
warfare, this work of Dr. John Caius drew from his 
namesake, Thomas Caius, a vindication of that which 
it was intended to refute ; and this work he entitled 
" Thomce Caii Vindicice Antiquitatis Academic 
Oxoniensis contra Joannem Caium Cantabrigien- 
sem" These two singular productions were sub- 
sequently published together by Hearne, the Oxford 
antiquary, who, with a prejudice natural enough, 
boasts that the forcible logic of the Oxford advocate- 
" broke the heart and precipitated the death of his 
Cambridge antagonist." In other words, Dr. John 
Caius, it is said, 

DIED OF LITERARY MORTIFICATION, 

On learning that his Oxford opponent had prepared 
a new edition of his work, to be published after his 



NUTS TO CRACK. 7 

death, in which he was told were some arguments 
thought to bear hard on his own. " But this 
appears to have as little foundation as other stories 
of the kind," says the editor of the History just 
quoted ; " since it is not probable that Dr. John 
Caius ever saw the strictures which are said to have 
occasioned his death : for, as Thomas Caius died in 
1572, they remained in MS. till they were published 
by Hearne in 1730 ;" — a conclusion, however, to 
which our learned historian seems to have jumped 
rather hastily, as it was just as possible that a 
MS. copy reached Dr. John Caius in the second as 
in the first case ; and it is natural to suppose that 
the Oxford champion would desire it should be so. 
As a specimen of the manner in which such con- 
troversies are conducted, I conclude with the brief 
notice, that Tony Wood, as the author of Terrce- 
Filius calls him, has largely treated of the subject 
in his Annals of Oxford, where he states, that 

SIR SIMON D'EWES, 

When compiling his work on the antiquity of the 
University of Cambridge, "thought he should be 
able to set abroad a new matter, that was never 
heard of before, for the advancement of his own 
town and University of Cambridge above Oxford ;" 
but " hath done very little or nothing else but 
renewed the old Crambe, and taken up Dr. Cay's 
old song, running with him in his opinions and 
tenets, whom he before condemning of dotage, 
makes himself by consequence a dotard." Accord- 



8 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

ing to Sir Simon, " Valence College (t. e. Pembroke 
Hall) was the first endowed college in England;" 
" his avouching which," says Wood, " is of no force ;" 
and he, as might be expected, puts in a claim for 
his own college (Merton, of Oxford), " which,'' he 
adds, " Sir Simon might have easily known, had 
he been conversant with histories, was the oldest 
foundation in either University." Therefore, " if 
the antiquity of Cambridge depends upon Valence 
College (or rather, upon Peter House), and that 
house upon this distich, which stood for a public 
inscription in the parlour window thereof, it signifies 
nothing: — 

" Qua prseit Oxoniam Cancestria longa yetmstas 
Primatus a Petri dicitur orsa Domo." 

He finally overwhelms his opponent by adding, that 
Oxford became a public University in 1264, and 
that a bull for the purpose was obtained the previous 
year, Cambridge then " being but an obscure place 
of learning, if any at all" Thus I have cracked 
Xut the First. Those who would add " sweets to 
the sweets " may find them in abundance in the 
writers I have named already; and the subject is 
treated of very learnedly by Dyer, in his Dedication 
to his " Privileges of the University of Cambridge." 



GONE TO JERUSALEM. 



A learned living oriental scholar, and a senior 
fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who thinks 
less of journeying to Shiraz, Timbuctoo, or the Holy 
Land, than a Cockney would of a trip to Greenwich 



NUTS TO CRACK. 9 

Fair or Bagnigge Wells, kept in the same court, in 
College, with a late tutor, now the amiable rector of 
Staple — t, in Kent. It was their daily practice, 
when in residence, to take a ramble together, by the 
footpaths, round by Granchester, and back to College 
by Trumpington, or to Madingley, or the Hills, but 
more commonly the former ; all delightful in their 
way, and well known to gownsmen for various asso- 
ciations. To one of these our College dons daily 
wended their way cogitating, for they never talked, 
it is said, over the omnia magna of Cambridge life. 
Their invariable practice was to keep moving at a 
stiff pace, some four or five yards in advance of each 
other. Our amiable tutor went one forenoon to call 
on Mr. P. before starting, as usual, and found his 
door sported. This staggered him a little. Mr. P.'s 
bed-maker chanced to come up at the instant. 
" Where is Mr. P. ? " was his query. " Gone out, 
sir," was the reply. " Gone out ! " exclaimed 
Mr. H. ; " Where to ? " " To Jerusalem" she 
rejoined. And to Jersualem he w T as gone, sure 
enough ; a circumstance of so little import in his 
eyes, who had seen most parts of the ancient world 
already, and filled the office of tutor to an Infanta of 
Spain, that he did not think it matter worth the 
notice of his College Chum. Other travellers, " vox 
et ratio" as Horace says, would have had the cir- 
cumstance bruited in every periodical in Christendom. 
" quinque sequuntur te pueri." 



10 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

A CUTTING RETORT 

Is attributed to the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, 
when a student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where 
he is said to have studied hard, and rose daily, in the 
depth of winter, at four or five. He one day met a 
drunken fellow in the streets of Cambridge, who 
refused him the wall, observing, " I never give the 
wall to a rascal." " I do," retorted his Lordship, 
moving out of the way. It was probably this inci- 
dent that gave rise to the couplet — 

" Base man to take the wall I ne'er permit." 
The scholar said, " I do ; " and gave him it. 



LIBERTY A PLANT. 

V Qui tenerot caulbs alitnifregerit horti."—Hor. 

During the progress of a political meeting held in 
the town of Cambridge, it so happened that the late 
Dr. Mansel, then Public Orator of the University of 
Cambridge, but afterwards Master of Trinity College 
and Bishop of Bristol, came to the place of meeting 
just as Musgrave, the well known political tailor of 
his day, was in the midst of a most pathetic oration, 
and emphatically repeating, " Liberty, liberty, gen- 
tlemen — " He paused, — " Liberty is a plant — " 
" So is a cabbage ! " exclaimed the caustic Mansel, 
before Musgrave had time to complete his sentence, 
with so happy an allusion to the trade of the tailor, 
that he was silenced amidst roars of laughter. 
Another instance of — 



NUTS TO CRACK. 11 

A TAILOR BEING TAKEN BY SURPRISE, 

But by an Oxonian, a learned member of Christ 
Church, is recorded in the fact, that having, for near 
half a century, been accustomed to walk with a 
favourite stick, the ferule of which, at the bottom, 
came off, be took it to his tailor to have it repaired. 



REASONS FOR NOT PUBLISHING. 

The famous antiquary, Thomas Baker, B.D. of 
St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he was 
long Socius Ejectus, lays it down as a principle, 
in his admirable Reflections on Learnings " that if 
we had fewer books, we should have more learning/' 
It is singular that he never published but the one 
book named, though he has left behind him forty-two 
volumes of manuscripts, the greater part in the 
Harleian Collection, in the British Museum, princi- 
pally relating to Cambridge, and all neatly written 
in his own hand. 



DECLINING KING GEORGE. 

When " honest Vere" Foster, as he is called by 
" mild William/' his contemporary at College, and 
the grandfather of our celebrated traveller, Dr. 
Edward Daniel Clarke, was a student at Cambridge, 
where he was celebrated for his wit and humour, 
and for being a good scholar, St. John's being 
looked upon as a Tory college, a young fellow, a 



12 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

student, reputed a Whig-, was appointed to deliver 
an oration in the College Hall, on the 5th of Novem- 
ber. This he did ; but having, for some time, dwelt 
on the double deliverance of that day, in his perora- 
tion, he passed from King William to King George, 
on whom he bestowed great encomiums. When the 
speech was over, honest Vere and the orator being 
at table together, the former addressed the latter 
with, " I did not imagine, sir, that you would decline 
King George in your speech." " Decline ! M said 
the astonished orator ; " what do you mean ? I 
spoke very largely and handsomely of him." " That 
is what I mean, too, sir," said Vere : " for you had 
him in every case and termination : Georgius — 
Georgii — Georgio — Georgium — O Georgi ! " 
Another of " honest Vere's " 

CLASSICAL JEU D'ESPRIT 

Is deserving a place in our treasury. He one day 
asked his learned college contemporary, Dr. John 
Taylor, editor of Demosthenes, " why he talked of 
selling his horse ? " " Because," replied the doctor, 
" I cannot afford to keep him in these hard times" 
" You should keep a mare" rejoined Foster, " ac- 
cording to Horace — 

' ^Equam memento rebus in arduis 
Servare.' " 



A TRAIT OF BARROW. 
Soon after that great, good, and loyal son of 
Granta, Dr. Isaac Barrow, was made a prebend of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 13 

Salisbury, says Dr. Pope, " I overheard him say, 
1 / wish I had five hundred pounds. 9 ' That's a 
large sum for a philosopher/ observed Dr. Pope ; 
' what would you do with so much ?' * I would,' 
said he, * give it to my sister for a portion, that 
would procure her a good husband.' A few months 
after," adds his memorialist, " he was made happy 
by receiving the above sum/' which he so much 
desired, "for putting a new life into the corps of 
his new prebend." 



INVETERATE SMOKERS. 

Both Oxford and Cambridge have been famous 
for inveterate smokers. Amongst them was the 
learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, who said " it helped his 
thinking." His illustrious pupil, Newton, was 
scarcely less addicted to the "Indian weed," and 
every body has heard of his hapless courtship, when, 
in a moment of forgetfulness, he popped the lady's 
finger into his burning pipe, instead of popping the 
question, and was so chagrined, that he never could 
be persuaded to press the matter further. Dr. Parr 
was allowed his pipe when he dined with the first 
gentleman in Europe, George the Fourth, and when 
refused the same indulgence by a lady at whose 
house he was staying, he told her, " she was the 
greatest tobacco-stopper he had ever met with." 
The celebrated Dr. Farmer, of black-letter me- 
mory, preferred the comforts of the parlour of 
Emmanuel College, of which he was master, and a 



14 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

"yard of clay " (there were no hookahs in his day), 
to a bishopric, which dignity he twice refused, when 
offered to him by Mr. Pitt. Another learned 

LOVER OF TOBACCO, 

And eke of wit, mirth, puns, and pleasantry, was 
the famous Dr. Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, 
Oxford, the never-to-be-forgotten composer of the 
good old catch — 

" Hark, the merry Christ -Church bells," 

and of another to be sung by four men smoking their 
pipes, which is not more difficult to sing than divert- 
ing to hear. His pipe was his breakfast, dinner, and 
supper, and a student of Christ Church, at 10 o'clock 
one night, finding it difficult to persuade a " freshman" 
of the fact, laid him 

A WAGER, 

That the Dean was at that instant smoking. Away 
he hurried to the deanery to decide the controversy, 
and on gaining admission, apologised for his intru- 
sion by relating the occasion of it. " Well," replied 
the Dean, in perfect good humour, with his pipe in 
his hand, " you see you have lost your wager : for 
I am not smoking, but filling my pipe." 



GAME IN EVERY BUSH. 

Bishop Watson says, in his valuable Chemical 
Essays, that " Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Bentley met 
accidentally in London, and on Sir Isaac's inquiring 
what philosophical pursuits were carrying on at 



NUTS TO CRACK. 15 

Cambridge, the doctor replied, " None ; for when 
you are a-hunting, Sir Isaac, you kill all the game ; 
you have left us nothing to pursue." " Not so," 
said the philosopher, " you may start a variety of 
game in every bush, if you will but take the trouble 
to beat it." " And so in truth it is," adds Dr. W. ; 
" every object in nature aifords occasion for philo- 
sophical experiment." 



NEWTON'S TOAST. 

The Editor of the Literary Panorama, says 
Corneille Le Bruyer, the famous Dutch painter, 
relates, that " happening one day to dine at the table 
of Newton, with other foreigners, when the dessert 
was sent up, Newton proposed, ' a health to the 
men of every country who believed in a God ;' 
which," says the editor, "was drinking the health 
of the whole human race." Equal to this was 

THE PIETY OF RAY, 

The celebrated naturalist and divine, who (when 
ejected from his fellowship of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, for nonconformity, and, for the same reason, 
being no longer at liberty to exercise his clerical 
functions as a preacher of the Gospel), turned to 
the pursuit of the sciences of natural philosophy and 
botany for consolation. " Because I could no longer 
serve God in the church," said this great and good 
man (in his Preface to the Wisdom of God mani- 
fested in the Works of the Creation), " I thought 
myself more bound to do it by my writings." 



16 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

THE DEVIL LOOKING OVER LINCOLN 

Is a tradition of many ages' standing, but the origin 
of the celebrated statue of his Satanic Majesty, which 
of erst overlooked Lincoln College, Oxford, is not so 
certain as that the e&igy was popular, and gave rise 
to the saying. After outstanding centuries of hot 
and cold, jibes and jeers, " cum multis aliis" to 
which stone, as well as flesh, is heir, it was taken down 
on the 15th of November, 1731, says a writer in 
the Gentleman's Magazine, having lost its head in a 
storm about two years previously, at the same time 
the head was blown off the statue of King Charles 
the First, which overlooked Whitehall. 



RADCLIFFE'S LIBRARY. 

Tom Warton relates, in his somewhat rambling 
Life of Dr. Ralph Bathurst, President of Trinity 
College, Oxford, that Dr. Radcliffe was a student of 
Lincoln College when Dr. B. presided over Trinity; 
but notwithstanding their difference of age and dis- 
tance of situation, the President used to visit the 
young student at Lincoln College " merely for the 
smartness of his conversation." During one of these 
morning or evening calls, Dr. B. observing the 
embryo physician had but few books in his chambers, 
asked him " Where was his study ? " upon which 
young Radcliffe replied, pointing to a few books, a 
skeleton, and a herbal, " This, Sir, is Radcliffe's 
library/' Tom adds the following 



NUTS TO CRACK. 17 

TRAITS OF DR. BATHURST'S WIT AND HABITS. 

When the Doctor was Vice- Chancellor of Oxford, 
a captain of a company, who had fought bravely in 
the cause of his royal master, King- Charles the First, 
being recommended to him for the degree of D.C.L., 
the doctor told the son of Mars he could not confer 
the degree, " but he would apply to his majesty to 
give him a regiment of horse ! " 

HE FREQUENTLY CARRIED A WHIP IN HIS HAND, 

An instrument of correction not entirely laid aside in 
our universities in his time ; but (says Tom) he only 
" delighted to surprise scholars, when walking in 
the grove at unseasonable hours. This he practised," 
adds Warton, " on account of the pleasure he took 
in giving so odd an alarm, rather than from any 
principle of approving, or intention of applying so 
illiberal a punishment." One thing is certain, that 
in the statutes of Trinity College, Oxford (as late as 
1556), scholars of the foundation are ordered to be 

WHIPPED EVEN TO THE TWENTIETH YEAR. 

" Dr. Potter," says Aubrey, while a tutor of the 
above college, " whipt his pupil with his sword by 
his side, when he came to take his leave of him to 
go to the Inns of Court." This was done to make 
him a smart fellow. " In Sir John Fane's collection 
of letters of the Past on family, written temp. Henry 
VI.," says the author of the Gradus ad Catabrigiam, 
" we find one of the gentle sex prescribing for her 
c 



18 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

son> who was at Cambridge/ ' no doubt with a maternal 
anxiety that he should 

BE A SMART FELLOW, 

as follows : — " Prey Grenefield to send me faithfully 
worde by wrytyn, who (how) Clemit Paston hathe 
do his dever i' lernying, and if he hath nought do 
well, nor will nought amend, prey hym that he wyll 
truely belash hym tyl he wyll amend, and so dyd 
the last mastyr, and the best eu' he had at Cam- 
bridge." And that Master Grenefield might not 
want due encouragement, she concludes with promis- 
ing him " X m'rs," for his pains. We do not, how- 
ever, learn how many marks young Master Clemit 
received, who certainly took more pains. — Patiendo 
nonfaciendo — Ferendo nonferiendo. 



MILTON WAS BELASHED 

over the buttery-hatch of Christ-College, Cambridge, 
and, as Dr. Johnson insinuates in his Life, was the 
last Cambridge student so castigated in either 
university. The officer who performed this funda- 
mental operation was Dr. Thomas Bainbrigge, the 
master of Christ's College. But as it was at a later 
date that Dr. Ralph Bathurst carried his whip, 
according to our friend Tom's showing, to surprise 
the scholars, it is therefore going a great length to 
give our " Prince of Poets" the sole merit of being 
the last smart fellow that issued from the halls of 
either Oxford or Cambridge, handsome as he was. 
The following celebrated 



NUTS TO CRACK. 19 

EPIGRAM ON AN EPIGRAM, 

Printed, says the Oxford Sausage, " from the original 
MSS. preserved in the archives of the Jelly-bag 
Society," is somewhere said to have been written by 
Dr. Ralph Bathurst, when an Oxford scholar : — 

One day in Christ-church meadows walking, 
Of poetry and such things talking, 
Says Ralph, a merry wag, 
An epigram, if right and good, 
In all its circumstances should 
Be like a jelly-bag. 

Your simile, I own, is new, 

But how dost make it out ? quoth Hugh. 

Quoth Ralph, I'll tell you, friend : 
Make it at top both wide and fit 
To hold a budget full of wit, 

And point it at the end. 



TELL US WHAT YOU CAN'T DO ? 

A party of Oxford scholars were one evening 
carousing at the Star Inn, when a waggish student, 
a stranger to them, abruptly introduced himself, and 
seeing he was not " one of us," they all began to 
quiz him. This put him upon his mettle, and, 
besides boasting of other accomplishments, he told 
them, in plain terms, that he could write Greek or 
Latin verses better, and was, in short, an over-match 
for them at any thing. Upon this, one of the party 
exclaimed, " You have told us a great deal of what 
you can do, tell us something you cant do?" " Well," 
he retorted, " I'll tell you what I can't do — leant 
c 2 



20 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

pay my reckoning ! " This sally won him a hearty 
welcome. 



THE FIRST WOMEN INTRODUCED INTO A CLOISTER. 

About 1550, whilst the famous Richard Cox, 
Bishop of Ely, was Dean of Christ-church, Oxford, 
says Cole, in his Athenae Cant., " he brought his wife 
into the college, who, with the wife of Peter Martyr, 
ft canon of the same cathedral, were observed to be 
the first women ever introduced into a cloister or 
college, and, upon that account, gave no small scandal 
at the time." This reminds me of an anecdote that 
used to amuse the under-grads in my day at Cam- 
bridge. A certain D.D., head of a college, a bachelor, 
and in his habits retired to a degree of solitariness, 
in an unlucky moment gave a lady that did not want 
twice bidding, not a bill of exchange, but a running 
invitation to the college lodge, to be used at pleasure. 
She luckily seized the long vacation for making her 
appearance, when there were but few students in 
residence ; but to the confusion of our D.D., her ten 
daughters came en traine, and the college was not a 
little scandalized by their playing shuttlecock in the 
open court — the lady was in no haste to go. Report 
says sundry hints were given in vain. She took his 
original invite in its literal sense, to " suit her own 
convenience." The anxiety he endured threw our 
modest D.D. into a sick-bed, and not relishing the 
office of nurse to a bachelor of sixty years' standing, 
she decamped, + her ten daughters. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 21 



THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOLAR AND THE GHOST OF A 
SCRAG OF MUTTON. 

In the days that are past, by the side of a stream, 

Where waters but softly were flowing, 
With ivy o'ergrown an old mansion-house stood, 
That was built on the skirts of a chilling damp wood, 

Where the yew-tree and cypress were growing. 

The villagers shook as they passed by the doors, 
When they rested at eve from their labours ; 
And the traveller many a furlong went round, 
If his ears once admitted the terrific sound, 
Of the tale that was told by the neighbours. 

They said, " that the house in the skirts of the wood 

By a saucer-eyed ghost was infested, 
Who filled every heart with confusion and fright, 
By assuming strange shapes at the dead of the night, 

Shapes monstrous, and foul, and detested." 

And truly they said, and the monster well knew, 

That the ghost was the greatest of evils ; 
For no sooner the bell of the mansion toll'd one, 
Than the frolicksome imp in a fury begun 
To caper like ten thousand devils. 

He appeared in forms the most strange and uncouth, 

Sure never was goblin so daring ! 
He utter' d loud shrieks and most horrible cries, 
Curst his body and bones, and his sweet little eyes. 

Till his impudence grew beyond bearing. 

Just at this nick o' time, when the master's sad heart 

With anguish and sorrow was swelling. 
He heard that a scholar with science complete, 
Full of magical lore as an egg's full of meat, 

At Cambridge had taken a dwelling. 



'22 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

The scholar was versed in all magical arts, 
Most famous was he throughout college ; 
To the Red Sea full oft many an unquiet ghost, 
To repose with King Pharaoh and his mighty host, 
He had sent through his powerful knowledge. 

To this scholar so learn' d the master he went, 

And as lowly he bent with submission, 
Told the freaks of the ghost and the horrible frights 
That prevented his household from resting at nights. 
And offered this humble petition : — 

" That he, the said scholar, in wisdom so wise, 

Would the mischievous fiend lay in fetters ; 
Would send him in torments for ever to dwell, 
In the nethermost pit of the nethermost hell, 
For destroying the sleep of his betters/' 

The scholar so versed in all magical lore, 

Told the master his pray'r should be granted ; 
He ordered his horse to be saddled with speed, 
And perch' d on the back of his cream colour' d steed, 
Trotted off to the house that was haunted. 

" Bring me turnips and milk ! " the scholar he cried. 

In voice like the echoing thunder : 
He brought him some turnips and suet beside, 
Some milk and a spoon, and his motions they eyed. 

Quite lost in conjecture and wonder. 

He took up the turnips, and peel'd off the skins, 

Put them into a pot that was boiling ; 
Spread a table and cloth, and made ready to sup, 
Then call'd for a fork, and the turnips fished up 
In a hurry, for they were a-spoiling. 

He mash'd up the turnips with butter and milk : 

The hail at the casement 'gan clatter ! 
Yet this scholar ne'er heeded the tempest without, 
But raising his eyes, and turning about, 
Asked the maid for a small wooden platter. 






NUTS TO CRACK. 23 

He mash'd up the turnips with butter and salt, 

The storm came on thicker and faster — 
The lightnings went flash, and with terrific din 
The wind at each crevice and cranny came in, 

Tearing up by the root lath and plaster. 

He mash'd up the turnips with nutmegs and spice, 

The mess would have ravish' d a glutton ; 
When lo ! with sharp bones hardly covered with skin, 
The ghost from a nook o'er the window peep'd in, 
In the form of a boiVd scrag of mutton. 

" Ho ! ho ! " said the ghost, " what art doing below ? " 

The scholar peep'd up in a twinkling — 
" The times are too hard to afford any meat, 
So to render my turnips more pleasant to eat, 

A few grains of pepper I'm sprinkling." 

Then he caught up a fork, and the mutton he seiz'd, 

And soused it at once in the platter ; 
Threw o'er it some salt and a spoonful of fat, 
And before the poor ghost could tell what he was at, 
He was gone like a mouse down the throat of a cat, 

And this is the whole of the matter. 



COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS. 

Doctor John Franklin, Fellow and Master of 
Sidney College, Cambridge, 1730, "a very fat, rosy- 
complexioned man," dying soon after he was made 
Dean of Ely, and being succeeded by Dr. Ellis, " a 
meagre, weasel-faced, s worthy, black man," the Fen- 
man of Ely, (says Cole) in allusion thereto, out of 
vexation at being so soon called upon for recognition 
money, made the following humourous distitch : — 

" The Devil took our Dean, 
And pick' d his bones clean ; 
Then clapt him on a board, 
And sent him back again." 



24 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

JAUNT DOWN A PATIENT'S THROAT. 

" Two of a tiade can ne'er agree, 
No proverb e'er was juster ; 
They've ta'en down Bishop Blaize, d'ye see, 
And put up Bishop Bluster." 

Dr. Mansel, on Bishop Watson's head becoming 
a signboard, in Cambridge, in lieu of the 
ancient one of Bishop Blaize. — Facbtijb 
Cant., p. 7- 

Sir Isaac Pennington and Sir Busick Harwood 
were cotemporary at Cambridge. The first as 
Regius Professor of Physic and Senior Fellow of 
St. John's College, the other was Professor of 
Anatomy and Fellow of Downing College. Both 
were eminent in their way, but seldom agreed, and 
held each other's abilities pretty cheap, some say in 
sovereign contempt. Sir Busick was once called 
in by the friends of a patient that had been under 
Sir Isaac's care, but had obtained small relief, 
anxious to hear his opinion of the malady. Not 
approving of the treatment pursued, he inquired 
" who was the physician in attendance," and on 
being told, exclaimed — " He ! If he were to descend 
into a patient's stomach with a candle and lantern, 
he would not have been able to name the complaint ! " 

THIS DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 

Was hit off, it is supposed, not by Dean Swift or 
wicked Will Whiston, but by Bishop Mansel, as 

follows : — 

Sir Isaac, 

Sir Busick ; 

Sir Busick, 

Sir Isaac ; 
'Twould make you and I sick 
To taste their physick. 

Another, perhaps the same Cambridge wag, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 25 

penned the following quaternion on Sir Isaac, which 
appeared under the title of 

AN EPIGRAM ON A PETIT-MAITRE PHYSICIAN. 

When Pennington for female ills indites, 
Studying alone not what, but how he writes, 
The ladies, as his graceful form they scan, 
Cry, with ill-omen'd rapture, " killing man! " 

But Sir Isaac, too, was a wit, and chanced on a time 
to be one of a Cambridge party, amongst whom was 
a rich old fellow, an invalid, who was too mean to 
buy an opinion on his case, and thought it a good 
opportunity to worm one out of Sir Isaac gratis. 
He accordingly seized the opportunity for reciting 
the whole catalogue of his ills, ending with, " what 
would you advise me to take, my dear Sir Isaac ? " "I 
should recommend you to take advice/* was the reply. 



PORSON, 
Whose very name conjures up the spirits of ten 
thousand wits, holding both sides, over a copus 
of Trinity ale and a classical pun, would not only 
frequently " steal a few hours from the night," but 
see out both lights and liquids, and seem none the 
worse for the carouse. He had one night risen 
for the purpose of reaching his hat from a peg to 
depart, after having finished the port, sherry, gin- 
store, &c, when he espied a can of beer, says Dyer, 
(surely it must have been audit,) in a corner. 
Restoring his hat to its resting place, he reseated 
himself with the following happy travestie of the old 
nursery lines — 

" When wine is gone, and ale is spent, 
Then small beer is most excellent." 



'26 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

It was no uncommon thing for his gyp to enter his 
room with Phoebus, and find him still en robe, with 
no other companions but a Homer, iEschylus, Plato, 
and a dozen or two other old Grecians surrounding 
an empty bottle, or what his late Royal Highness 
the Duke of York would have styled " a marine," 
id est "a good fellow, who had done his duty, and 
was ready to do it again." Upon his gyp once 
peeping in before daylight, and finding him still up, 
Porson answered his " quod petis ? " (whether he 
wanted candles or liquor,) with 

ov rooi ova a,Wo. 

Scottice — neither Toddy nor Tallow. 

At another time, when asked what he would 
drink ? he replied — u aliquid " (a liquid). 

He was once 

BOASTING AT A CAMBRIDGE PARTY, 

That he could pun upon anything, when he was 
challenged to do so upon the Latin Gerunds, and 
exclaimed, after a pause — 

" When Dido found ^Eneas would not come, 
She mourned in silence, and was Di-do-dum(b). 

BISHOP HEBER'S COLLEGE PUNS. 

i 
The late amiable, learned, and pious Bishop Heber 

was not above a pun in his day, notwithstanding 

Dr. Johnson's anathema, that a man who made a 

pun would pick a pocket. Among the jeux des mots 

attributed to him are the following: he was one 

day dining with an Oxford party, comprising the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 27 

elite of his day, and when the servant was in the 
act- of removing the table-cloth from off the green 
table- covering, at the end of their meal, he ex- 
claimed, in the words of Horace — 

" Diffugere nives : redeunt jam gramina campis." 

At another time he made one of a party of Oxonians, 
amongst whom was a gentleman of great rotundity 
of person, on which account he had acquired the 
soubriquet of ' heavy-a — se;' and he was withal of 
very somniferous habits, frequently dozing in the 
midst of a conversation that would have made the 
very glasses tingle with delight. He had fallen fast 
asleep during the time a mirth-moving subject was 
recited by one of the party, but woke up just at the 
close, when all save himself were " shaking fat sides,'* 
and on his begging to know the subject of their 
laughter, Heber let fly at him in pure Horatian — 
11 Exsomnis stupet Evias." 

The mirth-loving Dr. Barnard, late Provost of 
Eton, was cotemporary, at Cambridge, with 

A WORTHY OF THE SAME SCHOOL, 

Who, then a student of St. John's College, used 
to frequent the same parties that Barnard did, who 
was of King's. Barnard used to taunt him with his 
stupidity ; " and," said Judge Hardinge, who records 
the anecdote, " he one day half killed Barnard with 
laughter, who had been taunting him, as usual, with 
the simplicity of the following excuse and remon- 
strance : * You are always running your rigs upon 



28 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

me, and calling me 'stupid fellow ;' and it is very 
cruel, now, that's what it is ; for you don't consider 
that a broad-wheeled waggon went over my head 
when I was ten years old." And here I must re- 
mark upon the injustice of persons reflecting" upon 
the English Universities, as their enemies often do, 
because every man who succeeds in getting a degree 
does not turn out a P or son or a Newton. I knew 
one Cantab, a Caius man, to whom writing a letter 
to his friends was such an effort, that he used to 
get his medical attendant to give him an cegrotat 
(put him on the sick list), and, besides, 

KEEP HIS DOOR SPORTED FOR A WEEK, 

till the momentous task was accomplished. And 
two Oxonians were of late 

PLUCKED AT THEIR DIVINITY EXAMINATION, 

Because one being asked, " Who was the Mediator 
between God and man?" answered, " The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury." The other being questioned 
as to " why our Saviour sat on the right hand of 
God ? " replied, " Because the Holy Ghost sat on 
the left" 

COMPLIMENT TO THE MEN OF EXETER COLLEGE, 
OXON. 

" The men of Exeter College, Oxon," says Fuller, 
in his Church History, " consisted chiefly of Cornish 



NUTS TO CRACK. 29 

and Devonshire men, the gentry of which latter, 
Queen Elizabeth used to say, are courtiers by birth. 
And as these western men do bear away the bell for 
might and sleight in wrestling, so the schollars here 
have always acquitted themselves with credit in 
Palcestra liter aria" 

And writing of this society reminds me that 

HIS GRACE OF WELLINGTON 

Is a living example of the fact, that it does not 
require great learning to make a great general ; nor 
is great learning always necessary to complete the 
character of the head of a college. The late Rector of 
Exeter College, Dr. Cole, raised that society, by his 
prudent management, from the very reduced rank in 
which he found it amongst the other foundations of 
Oxford, to a flourishing and high reputation for good 
scholarship. Yet he is said one day to have compli- 
mented a student at collections, by saying, after the 
gentleman had construed his portion of Sophocles, 
" Sir, you have construed your Livy very well." He 
nevertheless redeemed his credit by one day posing a 
student, during his divinity examination, with asking 
him, in vain " What Christmas day was?" Another 
Don of the same college, once asking a student of 
the society some divinity question, which he was 
equally at a loss for an answer, he exclaimed — 
" Good God, sir, you the son of a clergyman, and 
not answer such a question as that ? " Aristotle 
was of opinion that knowledge could only be ac- 



30 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

quired, but our tutor seems to have thought, like 
the opponents of Aristotle, that a son of a parson 
ought to be born to it. 

ANOTHER OXONIAN WAS POSED, 

Whom I knew, yet was by no means deficient in 
scholastic learning, and withal a great wag. He 
was asked, at the divinity examination, how many 
sacraments there were. This happened at the time 
that the Catholic question was in the high road to 
the House of Lords, under the auspices of the Duke 
of Wellington, and he had been cramming his upper 
story with abundance of Catholic Faith from the 
writings of Faber, Gandolphy, and the Bishops of 
Durham and Exeter. " How many sacraments are 
there, sir ? " repeated the Examiner (of course 
referring to the Church of England). The student 
paused on, and the question was repeated a second 
time; "Why — a — suppose — we — a — say half a 
dozen," was the reply. It is needless to add he was 
plucked. The following 

LAPSUS GRAMMATICS 

Is attributed to a certain D.D. of Exeter, who, 
having undertaken to lionize one of the foreign 
princes of the many that accompanied the late 
king and the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia to 
Oxford, in 1814, a difficulty arose between them as 
to their medium of communication ; the prince being 
ignorant of the English language, and the doctor no 
less so with respect to modern foreign languages. 



NUTS TO CRACK. -'31 

Iii this dilemma the latter proposed an interchange 
of ideas by means of the fingers, in the following- 
unique address : — " Intelligisne colloquium cum 
digitalibus tuts 9" 

It would be somewhat awkward for certain alumni 
if his Grace of Wellington should issue an imperative 
decree, as Chancellor, 

THAT THE LATIN TONGUE BE USED, 

(As Wood says, in his annals, the famous Arch- 
bishop Bancroft did, on being raised to the dignity 
of Chancellor of Oxford in 1608), " By the students 
in their halls and colleges, whereby," said his Grace, 
" the young as well as the old may be inured to a 
ready and familiar delivery of their minds in that 
language, whereof there was now so much use both 
in studies and common conversation ; for it was now 
observed (and so it may in these present times, adds 
Wood), that it was a great blemish to the learned 
men of this nation, that they being compleat in all 
good knowledge, yet they were not able promptly 
and aptly to express themselves in Latin, but with 
hesitation and circumlocution, which ariseth only 
from disuse." 

EFFECT OF HABIT. 

Dr. Fothergill, when Provost of Queen's College, 
Oxford, was a singular as well as a learned man, 
and would not have been seen abroad minus his wig 
and gown for a dukedom. One night a fire broke 
out in the lodge, which spread with such rapidity, 



32 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

that it was with difficulty Mrs. F. and family escaped 
the fury of the flames ; and this she no sooner did 
than, naturally enough, the question was, " Where 
is the Doctor ? " No Doctor was to be found ; and 
the cry was he had probably perished in the flames. 
All was bustle, and consternation, and tears, till 
suddenly, to the delight of all, he emerged from the 
burning pile, full-dressed, as usual, his wig something 
the worse for being nearly ' done to a turn ;' but he 
deemed it indecorous for him to appear otherwise, 
though he stayed to robe at the risk of his life. 



THE CONCUSSION. 

The living Cambridge worthy, William Sydney 
Walker, M.A. (who at the age of sixteen wrote the 
successful tragedy of Wallace, and recently vacated 
his fellowship at Trinity College " for conscience- 
sake"), walking hastily round the corner of a street 
in Cambridge, in his peculiarly near-sighted sidling 
hasty manner, he suddenly came in contact with the 
blind muffin-man who daily perambulates the town. 
The concussion threw both upon their haunches. 
M Don't you see I'm blind? " exclaimed the muffin- 
man, in great wrath. " How should I," rejoined 
the learned wag, " when I'm blind too." 



COMIC PICTURE OF THE ELECTION OF A PROVOST 
OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

Upon the death of a provost of King's College, 
Cambridge, the fellows are obliged, according to 
their statutes, to be shut up in their celebrated 



NUTS TO CRACK. 33 

chapel till they have agreed upon the election of a 
successor, a custom not unlike that to which the 
cardinals are subject at Rome, upon the death of a 
pope, where not uncommonly some half dozen are 
brought out dead before an election takes place. 
" The following is a comic picture of an election," 
says Judge Hardinge, in Nichols's Illustrations of 
Literature, from the pen of Daniel Wray, Esq., dated 
from Cambridge, the 19th of January, 1743. " The 
election of a provost of King's is over — Dr. George 
is the man. The fellows went into chapel on 
Monday, before noon in the morning, as the statute 
directs. After prayers and sacrament, they began to 
vote: — 22 for George; 16 for Thackery ; 10 for 
Chapman. Thus they continued, scrutinising and 
walking about, eating, and sleeping ; some of them 
smoking. Still the same numbers for each candi- 
date, till yesterday about noon (for they held that in 
the forty-eight hours allowed for the election no 
adjournment could be made), when the Tories, 
Chapman s friends, refusing absolutely to concur 
with either of the other parties, Thackery s votes 
went over to George by agreement, and he was 
declared. A friend of mine, a curious fellow, tells 
me he took a survey of his brothers at two o!clock 
in the morning, and that never was a more curious 
or a more diverting spectacle : some wrapped in 
blankets, erect in their stalls like mummies; others 
asleep on cushions, like so many Gothic tombs. 
Here a red cap over a wig, there a face lost in the 
cape of a rug; one blowing a chafing-dish with a 
surplice-sleeve ; another warming a little negus, or 

D 



34 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

sipping- Coke upon Littleton, i. e. tent and brandy. 
Thus did they combat the cold of that frosty night, 
which has not killed any one of them, to my infinite 
surprise." One of the fellows of King's engaged in 
this election was Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord High 
Chancellor of England, and father of the present 
Marquis of Camden, who, writing to his amiable and 
learned friend and brother Etonian and Kingsman, 
Dr. Sneyd Davies, archdeacon of Derby, &c, in the 
January of the above year, says, " Dear Sneyd, we 
are all busy in the choice of a provost. George and 
Thackery are the candidates. George has all the 
power and weight of the Court interest, but I am for 
Thackery, so that I am at present a patriot, and 
vehemently declaim against all unstatutable influence. 
The College are so divided, that your friends the 
Tories may turn the balance if they will; but, if 
they should either absent themselves or nominate a 
third man, Chapman, for example? Thackery will be 
discomfited. Why are not you a doctor? We could 
choose you against all opposition. However, I insist 
upon it, that you shall qualify yourself against the 
next vacancy, for since you will not come to London, 
and wear lawn sleeves, you may stay where you are, 
and be provost,' ' — which he did not live to be, though 
he did take hisD.D. 



SIR, DOMINUS, MAGISTRI, SIR GREENE. 

A writer in an early volume of the Gentleman's 
Magazine has stated, that " the Christian name is 



NUTS TO CRACK. 35 

never used in the university with the addition of Sit , 
but the surname only." Cole says, in reply, " This 
is certainly so at Cambridge. Yet when Bachelors 
of Arts get into the country, it is quite the reverse ; 
for then, whether curates, chaplains, vicars, or rectors, 
they are constantly styled Sir, or Dominies, prefixed 
to both their names, to distinguish them from 
Masters of Arts, or Magistri. This may be seen,'' 
he says, u in innumerable instances in the lists of 
incumbents in New Court, &c." And, he adds, 
addressing himself to that illustrious character, 
Sylvanus Urban, " I could produce a thousand 
others from the wills, institutions, &c, in the diocese 
of Ely, throughout the whole reign of Henry VIII., 
and for many years after, till the title was abandoned, 
and are never called Sir Evans, or Sir Martext, as 
in the university they would be, according to your 
correspondent's opinion, but invariably Sir Hugh 
Evans and Sir Oliver Martext, &c. The subject," 
adds this pleasant chronicler, " ' seria ludo,' puts 
me in mind of a very pleasant story, much talked of 
when I was first admitted of the university, which 
I know to be fact, as I since heard Mr. Greene, 
the dean of Salisbury, mention it. The dean was 
at that time only Bachelor of Arts, and Fellow of 
Bene't College, where Bishop Mawson was master, 
and then, I think, Bishop of Llandaif, who, being 
one day at Court, seeing Mr. Greene come into the 
drawing-room, immediately accosted him, pretty loud, 
in this manner, How do you do, Sir Greene? When 
did you leceve College, Sir Greene ? Mr. Greene 
was quite astonished, and the company present much 
d2 



36 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

more so, as not comprehending the meaning of the 
salutation or title, till Mr. Greene explained it, and 
also informed them," observes Cole, with his ac- 
customed fulness of information, " of the worthy 
good bishop's absences.' ' 



HUSBANDS MAY BEAT THEIR WIVES. 

Fuller relates in his Abel Redivivus, that the 
celebrated President of Corpus Christi College, 
Oxford, Dr. John Rainolds, the contemporary of 
Jewel and Usher, had a controversy with one Wil- 
liam Gager, a student of Christ- Church, who con- 
tended for the lawfulness of stage-plays ; and the 
same Gager, he adds, maintained, horresco refer ens f 
in a public act in the university, that " it was lawful 
for husbands to beat their wives." 



ANOTHER ATTACK ON THE LADIES. 

Is contained in Antony Wood's " angry account " of 
the alterations made in Merton College, of which he 
was a fellow, during the wardenship of Sir Thomas 
Clayton, whose lady, says Wood, " did put the 
college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous 
expenses, among which were a very large looking- 
glass, for her to see her ugly face, and body to the 
middle, * * * * * 

which was bought in Hilary terme, 1674, and cost, 
as the bursar told me, above 10/. ; a bedstead and 
bedding, worth 40/., must also be bought, because 



NUTS TO CRACK. 3/ 

the former bedstede and bedding was too short for 
him (he being a tall man), so perhaps when a short 
warden comes, a short bed must be bought." There 
were also other 

EXTRAORDINARY DOINGS AT MERTON. 

When the Vandals of Parliamentary visiters, in 
Cromwell's time, perpetrated their spoliations at 
Oxford. One of them, Sir Nathaniel Brent, says 
Wood, actually " took down the rich hangings at 
the altar of the chapel, and ornamented his bed- 
chamber with them." 



DIGGING YOUR GRAVES WITH YOUR TEETH. 

The late vice-master of Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, the Rev. William Hodson, B.D., and the 
late Regius Professor of Hebrew, the Rev. William 
Collier, B.D., who had also been tutor of Trinity 
College, were both skilled in the science of music, 
and constant visiters at the quartett parties of Mr. 
Sharp, of Green Street, Cambridge, organist of St. 
John's College. The former happened one evening 
to enter Mr. Sharp's sanctum sanctorum, rather 
later than usual, and found the two latter just in the 
act of discussing a brace of roast ducks, with a bowl 
of punch in the back-ground. He was pressed to 
join them. " No, no, gentlemen," was his reply. 
" give me a glass of water and a crust. You know 
not what you are doing. You are digging your 
graves with your teeth." Both gentlemen, however, 
out-lived him. 



38 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



DR. TORKINGTON'S GRATITUDE TO HIS HORSE. 

The late master of Clare Hall, Cambridge, Dr. 
Torkington, was one evening- stopped by a footpad 
or pads, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, when 
riding at a humble pace on his old Rosinante, which 
had borne him through many a long year. Both 
horse and master were startled by the awful tones in 
which the words, " Stand, and deliver ! " were 
uttered, to say nothing of the flourish of a shillelah, 
or something worse, and an unsuccessful attempt to 
grab the rein. The horse, declining acquiescence, 
set ofT at a good round pace, and thus saved his 
master ; an act for which the old doctor was so 
grateful, that he never suffered it to be rode again, 
but had it placed in a paddock, facing his lodge, on 
the banks of the Cam, where, with a plentiful supply 
of food, and his own daily attentions, it lingered out 
the remnant of life, and " liv'd at home at ease." 



SAY JOHN SHARP IS A ROGUE. 

At the time the celebrated Archbishop Sharp was 
at Oxford, it was the custom in that University, as 
likewise in Cambridge, for students to have a chum 
or companion, who not only shared the sitting-room 
with each other, but the bed also ; and a writer, 
speaking of the University of Cambridge, says, one 
of the colleges was at one period so full, that when 
writing a letter, the students were obliged to hold 
their hand over it, to prevent its contents being 



NUTS TO CRACK. 39 

seen. " Archbishoip Sharp, when an Oxford scholar, 
was awoke in the night by his chum lying- by his 
side, who told him he had just dreamed a most ex- 
traordinary dream ; which was, that he (Sharp) would 
be an Archbishop of York. After some time, he 
again awoke him, and said he had dreamt the same, 
and was well assured he would arrive at that dignity. 
Sharp, extremely angry at being thus disturbed, told 
him if he awoke him any more, he would send him 
out of bed. However, his chum, again dreaming the 
same, ventured to awake him; on which Sharp 
became much enraged; but his bed-fellow telling 
him, if he had again the same dream he would not 
annoy him any more, if he would faithfully promise 
him, should he ever become archbishop, to give him 
a good rectory, which he named. " Well, well," 
said Sharp, " you silly fellow, go to sleep ; and if 
your dream, which is very unlikely, should come 
true, I promise you the living." " By that time," 
said his chum, " you will have forgot me and your 
promise." " No, no," says Sharp, "that I shall 
not ; but, if I do not remember you, and refuse you 
the living, then say, John Sharp is a rogue.'' 
After Dr. Sharp had been archbishop some time, 
his old friend (his chum) applied to him (on the said 
rectory being vacant), and, after much difficulty, got 
admitted to his presence, having been informed by 
the servant, that the archbishop was particularly 
engaged with a gentleman relative to the same 
rectory for which he was going to apply. The 
archbishop was told there was a clergyman who was 
extremely importunate to see him, and would take 



40 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

no denial. His Grace, extremely angry, ordered 
him to be admitted, and requested to know why he 
had so rudely almost forced himself into his presence. 
" I come," says he, " my Lord, to claim an old 
promise, the rectory of ." " I do not remem- 
ber, sir, ever to have seen you before ; how, then, 
could I have promised you the rectory, which I have 
just presented to this gentleman?" " Then," says 
his old chum, "John Sharp is a rogue!" The 
circumstance was instantly roused in the mind of the 
archbishop, and the result was, he provided liberally 
for his dreaming chum in the Church. 



" I SAID AS HOW YOU'D SEE." 

"In the year 1821," says Parke, in his Musical 
Memoirs, " I occasionally dined with a pupil of mine, 
Mr. Knight, who had lately left college. This 
young man (who played the most difficult pieces on 
the flute admirably) and his brother Cantabs, when 
they met, were very fond of relating the wild tricks for 
which the students of the University of Cambridge 
are celebrated. The following relation of one will 
convey some idea," he says, "of their general eccen- 
tricity : — A farmer, who resided at a considerable 
distance from Cambridge, but who had, nevertheless, 
heard of the excesses committed by the students, 
having particular business in the before-mentioned 
seat of the Muses, together with a strong aversion 
to entering it, took his seat on the roof of the coach, 
and, being engrossed with an idea of danger, said to 



NUTS TO CRACK. 41 

the coachman, who was a man of few words, ' I'ze 
been towld that the young gentlemen at Cambridge 
be wild chaps/ ' You'll see/ replied the coachman ; 
< and,' added the farmer, < that it be hardly safe to • 
be among 'em.' ' You'll see/ again replied the 
coachman. During the journey the farmer put 
several other interrogatories to the coachman, which 
was answered, as before, with ( You'll see ! ' When 
they had arrived in the High Street of Cambridge. 
Mr. Knight had a party of young men at his lodg- 
ings, who were sitting in the first floor, with the 
windows all open, and a large China bowl full of punch 
before them, which they had just broached. The 
noise made by their singing and laughing, attracting 
the notice and exciting the fears of the farmer, he 
again, addressing his taciturn friend, the coachman 
(whilst passing close under the window,) said, with 
great anxiety, ; Are we all safe, think ye ? ' when, 
before the master of the whip had time to utter his 
favourite monosyllables, < You'll see/ bang came 
down, on the top of the coach, bowl, punch, glasses, 
&c, to the amazement and terror of the farmer, who 
was steeped in his own favourite potation. * There/ 
said coachee (who had escaped a wetting), * I said as 
how you'd see ! ' " 



I NOW LEAVE YOU TO MAKE AS MUCH NOISE 
AS YOU PLEASE. 

When Gray produced his famous Ode for the 
installation of his patron, the late Duke of Grafton, 
a production, it is observed, which would have been 



OXFORD wi> CAMBRIDGE 

more admired, had it ** not been surpassed by his 

two masterpieces, the Bard, and the Progress of 
ry," being possessed of a rerj accurate taste for 

music, which he had formed on the Italian model, he 

j lied every note of the composer's music, (the 

learned Cambridge professor, Dr. Randall,) with 

the most critical exactness, and kept the composer 
in attendance upon him, says Dyer, in his Sup- 
plement, for three months. Gray was, indeed, a 
thorough disciple of the Italian school of music, 
whilst the professor was an ardent admirer of the 
sublime compositions of Handel, whose noise, it is 
stated, Gray could not bear: but after the professor 
had implicitly followed his views till he came to 
the chorus, Gray exclaimed, " I have now done, 
and leave you to make as much noise as you 
please." This fine composition is still in MS. in the 
hands of the Doctor's son, Mr. Edward Randall, of 
the town of Cambridge. 



THE MAD PETER-HOUSE POET. 

Gray was not the only modern poet of deserved 
celebrity, which Peter House had the honour to 
foster in her cloisters. A late Fellow of that Society, 
named Kendal, " a person of a wild and deranged 
ot* mind," says Dyer, but, it must be confessed, 
with much method in his madness, during his resi- 
dence in Cambridge, " occasionally poured out, ex- 
temporaneously, the most beautiful effusions," but 
the paucity of the number preserved have almost 
left him without a name, though meriting a niche 



NUTS TO CRACK. 43 

in Fame's temple. I therefore venture to repeat the 
following, with his name, that his genius may live 
with it : — 

The town have found out different ways, 

To praise its different Lears : 
To Barry it gives loud huzzas, 

To Garrick only tears. 

He afterwards added this exquisite effusion : — 

A king, — aye, every inch a king, — 

Such Barry doth appear ; 
But Garrick' s quite another thing. 

He's every inch King Lear. 



THE GRACE CUP OF PEMBROKE-HALL, CAMBRIDGE. 

An ancient cup of silver gilt is preserved by this 
society, which was given to them by the noble 
foundress of their college, Lady Mary de St. Paul, 
daughter of Guy de Castillon, Earl of St. Paul, in 
France, and widow of Audomar de Valentia, Earl of 
Pembroke, who is said to have been killed in a 
tournament, held in France, in 1323, in honour of 
their wedding day, — an accident, says Fuller, by 
which she was " a maid, a wife, and a widow, in one 
day." Lysons in his second volume, has given an 
engraved delineation of this venerable goblet ; the 
foot of which, says Cole, in the forty-second volume 
of his MSS. " stands on a large circle, whose upper 
rim is neatly ornamented with small jleurs de lis, in 
open work, and looks very like an ancient coronet." 
On a large rim, about the middle of the cup, is a 



44 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

very ancient embossed inscription ; which, says the 
same authority, in 1773, " not a soul in the College 
could read, and the tradition of it was forgotten ;" 
but he supposes it to run : — 
Sayn Denis yt es me dere for his lof drenk and mak gud cher. 

The other inscription is short, and has an M. and 
V. above the circle ; " which," adds Cole, " I take to 
mean, God help at need Mary de Valentia" At 
the bottom of the inside of the cup is an embossed 
letter M. This he does not comprehend: but says 
it may possibly stand for Mementote. " Dining in 
Pembroke College Hall, New Year's Day, 1773," 
he adds, " the grace cup of silver gilt, the founder's 
gift to her college, was produced at the close of 
dinner, when, being full of sweet wine, the old 
custom is here, as in most other colleges, for the 
Master, at the head of the long table, to rise, and, 
standing on his feet, to drink, In piam memoriam 
(Fundatricis), to his neighbour on his right hand, 
who is also to be standing. When the Master has 
drunk, he delivers the cup to him he drank to, and 
sits down ; and the other, having the cup, drinks to 
his opposite neighbour, who stands up while the 
other is drinking; and thus alternately till it has 
gone quite through the company, two always stand- 
ing at a time. It is of no large capacity, and is often 
replenished." 

This is not unlike 

THE TERTIAVIT 
of the Mertonians, as they call it (says Mr. Pointer), 
from a barbarous Latin word derived from Tertius, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 45 

because there are always three standing at a time. 
The custom, he says, is a loyal one, and arises from 
their drinking- the King- and Queen's health standing 
(at dinner) on some extraordinary days (called 
Gaudies, from the Latin word Gaudeo, to rejoice), 
to show their loyalty. There are always three 
standing at a time, the first not sitting down again 
till the second has drank to a third man. The same 
loyal custom, under different forms, prevails in all 
colleges in both Universities. At the Inns of 
Court, also, in London, the King's health is drunk 
every term, on what is called Grand Day, all mem- 
bers present, big-wig and student, having filled " a 
bumper of sparkling wine," rise simultaneously, and 
drink " The King,* 9 supernaculum, of course. 



A MORE CAPACIOUS BOWL 

Than the foregoing is in the possession of the 
Society of Jesus College, Oxford, says Chalmers, 
the gift of the hospitable Sir Wat kins Williams 
Wynne, grandfather to the present baronet. It 
will contain ten gallons, and weighs 278 ounces : 
how or when it is used, this deponent sayeth not. 
Queen's College, Oxon, says Mr. Pointer, has 
its — 

HORN OF DIVERSION, 

So called because it never fails to afford funnery. 
It is kept in the buttery, is occasionally presented to 
persons to drink out of, and is so contrived, that by 



46 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

lifting- it up to the mouth too hastily, the air gets 
in and suddenly forces too great a quantity of the 
liquid, as if thrown into the drinker's face, to his 
great surprise and the delight of the standers by. 
Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra. 



ANOTHER BIBULOUS RELIQUE 

Was the famous chalice, found in one of the hands 
of the founder of Merton College, Oxford, the cele- 
brated Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester and 
Chancellor of England, upon the opening of his 
grave in 1659, says Wood, on the authority of 
Mr. Leonard Yate, Fellow of Merton. It held more 
than a quarter of a pint ; and the Warden and Fellows 
caused it to be sent to the College, to be put into 
their cista jocalium ; but the Fellows, in their zeal, 
sometimes drinking out of it, " this, then, so valued 
relic was broken and destroyed." 



A LAUDABLE AND CHRISTIAN CUSTOM, 

In Merton College, says Pointer, in his Oxoniensis 
Academia, &c, " is their meeting together in the Hall 
on Christmas Eve, and other solemn times, to sing 
a Psalm, and drink a Grace Cup to one another, 
(called Poculum Charitatis) wishing one another 
health and happiness. These Grace Cups" he adds, 
" they drink to one another every day after dinner 
and supper, wishing one another peace and good 



NUTS TO CRACK. 47 

neighbourhood." This conclusion reminds us of the 
following* anecdote : — 

A learned Cambridge mathematician, now holding 
a distinguished post at the Naval College, Ports- 
mouth, after discussing one day, with a party of 
Johnians, the propriety of the Dies Festce, solar, 
siderial, &c, drily observed, putting a bumper to 
his lips, " I think we should have jovial days as 
well." Every College in both Universities has the 
next best thing to it, — 

THEIR FEAST DAYS, 

" In piam memoriam " of their several founders, 
most of whom being persons of taste, left certain 
annual sums wherewith to " pay the piper." Besides 
minor feast-days, every Society, both at Oxford and 
Cambridge, hold its yearly commemoration. There 
is always prayers and a sermon on this day, and the 
Lesson is taken from Eccl. xliv. " Let us now praise 
famous men," &c. Mr. Pointer says, that at Mag- 
dalen College, Oxford, it is " a custom on all com- 
memoration days to have the bells rung in a confused 
manner, and without any order, it being the primi- 
tive way of ringing." The same writer states that 
there is 

A MUSICAL MAY-DAY COMMEMORATION, 

Annually celebrated by this Society, which consists 
of a concert of music on the top of the Tower, in 
honour of its founder, Henry VII. It was originally 



48 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

a mass, but since the Reformation, it has been 
" a merry concert of both vocal and instrumental 
music, consisting* of several merry ketches, and lasts 
almost two hours (beginning as early as four o'clock 
in the morning-), and is concluded with ringing the 
bells/' The performers have a breakfast for their 
pains. They have likewise singing early on Christ- 
mas morning. The custom is similar to one ob- 
served at Manheim, in Germany, and throughout 
the palatinate. 

Whoever was the author of the following admi- 
rable production, he was certainly not i/ovs-less, and 
it will "hardly be read with dry lips, or mouths that 
do not water," says the author of the Gradus ad 
Cant. 

ODE ON A COLLEGE FEAST DAY. 

I. 

Hark ! heard ye not yon footsteps dread, 
That shook the hall with thund'ring tread ? 
With eager haste 
The Fellows pass'd, 
Each, intent on direful work, 
High lifts his mighty blade, and points his deadly fork. 

II. 

But, hark ! the portals sound, and pacing forth, 

With steps, alas ! too slow, 
The College Gypts, of high illustrious worth, 
With all the dishes, in long order go. 
In the midst a form divine, 
Appears the fam'd sir-loin ; 
And soon, with plums and glory crown'd, 
Almighty pudding sheds its sweets around. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 49 

Heard ye the din of dinner bray ? 
Knife to fork, and fork to knife, 
Unnumber'd heroes, in the glorious strife, 

Through fish, flesh, pies, and puddings, cut their des- 
tin'd way. 

III. 

See beneath the mighty blade, 

Gor'd with many a ghastly wound, 
Low the famed sir-loin is laid, 

And sinks in many a gulf profound. 
Arise, arise, ye sons of glory, 
Pies and puddings stand before ye ; 
See the ghost of hungry bellies, 
Points at yonder stand of jellies ; 
While such dainties are beside ye, 
Snatch the goods the gods provide ye ; 
Mighty rulers of this state, 
Snatch before it is too late ; 
For, swift as thought, the puddings, jellies, pies, 
Contract their giant bulks, and shrink to pigmy size. 

IV. 

From the table now retreating, 

All around the fire they meet, 
And, with wine, the sons of eating, 

Crown at length the mighty treat : 
Triumphant plenty's rosy traces 
Sparkle in their jolly faces ; 
And mirth and cheerfulness are seen 
In each countenance serene. 

Fill high the sparkling glass, 

And drink the accustomed toast ; 
Drink deep, ye mighty host, 

And let the bottle pass. 
Begin, begin the jovial strain ; 

Fill, fill the mystic bowl ; 
And drink, and drink, and drink again ; 

For drinking fires the soul. 
E 



50 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

But soon, too soon, with one accord they reel ; 

Each on his seat begins to nod ; 
All conquering Bacchus' pow'r they feel, 
And pour libatious to the jolly god. 
At length, with dinner, and with wine oppress'd, 
Down in their chairs they sink, and give themselves*to rest. 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AT CAMBRIDGE. 

Sir Robert Walpole, the celebrated minister, was 
bred at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. At the 
first he raised great expectations as a boy, and when 
the master was told that St. John, afterwards Lord 
Bolingbroke, had with others, his scholars, distin- 
guished themselves for their eloquence, in the House 
of Commons, " I am impatient to hear that Walpole 
has spoken," was his observation ; " for I feel con- 
vinced he will be a good orator." At King's 
College his career was near being cut short by an 
attack of the small-pox. He was then known as a 
fierce Whig, and his physicians were Tories, one of 
whom, Dr. Brady, said, " We must take care to save 
this young man, or we shall be accused of having 
purposely neglected him, because he is so violent a 
Whig." After he was restored, his spirit and dispo- 
sition so pleased the same physician, that he added, 
" this singular escape seems to be a sure prediction 
that he is reserved for important purposes," which 
Walpole remembered with complacency. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 51 

Dr. Lamb, the present master of Corpus Christi 
Cambridge, in his edition of Masters's History of 
that College, gives the following copy of a bill, in 
the handwriting of Dr. John Jegon, a former master, 
which may be taken as a specimen of 

A COLLEGE DINNER AT THE END OF THE 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY :— 

" Visitors'' Feast, August 6, 1597, Eliz. 39. " 

" Imprimis, Butter and eggs ... xiie?. 

" Linge xud. 

11 Rootes buttered ... ... ... iid. 

" A leg of mutton ... ... ... xiirf. 

" A Poulte uid. 

" A Pike xviiid. 

1 * Buttered Maydes ... ... iiiirf. 

" Soles xiirf. 

" Hartichockes ... ... ... vie?. 

" Rost [b] eef viiirf. 

" Shrimps ... vie?. 

" Perches virf. 

" Skaite vie?. 

" Custards ... ... ... ... xiirf. 

1 ' Wine and Sugar ... ... ... xxrf. 

" Condiments, vinegar, pepper ... Hid. 

14 Money to the visitors ... ... vis. viiid. 

44 Money to scholars and officers, 
cooks, butler, register, Trinitie- 
hall school ... ... ... iiiis. viiirf. 

44 Item, Exceedings of the schollers xxd. 



Summa, xxiiiis. xd. 



44 J. Jegon." 
e 2 



52 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

The same authority gives the following curious 
item as occurring in 1620, during the mastership of 
the successor of Dr. Jegon, Dr. Samuel Walsall, who 
was elected in 1618, under the head of 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE WINE, &c, CONSUMED AT A 
COLLEGE AUDIT. 

£. s. d. 
" Imp. Tuesday night, a Pottle of Claret and a 

quart of Sacke ... ... ... 2 6 

u It. Wednesday, Jan. 31, a pound of sugar and 

a pound of carriways ... ... 211 

" It. Three ounces of Tobacco 4 6 

" It. Halfe an hundred apples and thirtie ... 1 6 

" It. A pottle of claret and a quart of sacke, 

Wednesday dinner ... ... ... 2 6 

"It. Two dousen of tobacco pipes ... ... 6 

" It. Thursday dinner, two pottles of sacke and 

three pottles and a quart of claret ... 9 4 
" It. Thursday supp. a pottle of sacke and 

three pottles of claret 6 4 

" It. Satterday diner, a pottle of claret and a 

quart 2 



" Sum. tot. £1 14 7 



" Hence it appears," observes Dr. L,, " sack was 
Is. 2d. a quart, claret 8d., and tobacco Is. 6d. an 
ounce. That is, an ounce of tobacco was worth 
exactly four pints and a half of claret, " Oxford, 
more than Cambridge, observed, and still observes, 
many singular customs. Amongst others recorded in 
Mr. Pointer's curious book, is the* now obsolete and 
very ancient one at Merton College, called 



NUTS TO CRACK. 53 



THE BLACK-NIGHT. 



Formerly the Dean of the college kept the 
Bachelor- fellows at disputations in the hall, some- 
times till late at night, and then to give them a 
black-night (as they called it) ; the reason of which 
was this : — " Among many other famous scholars of 
this college, there were two great logicians, the one 
Johannes Duns Scotus, called Doctor Subtilis, Fel- 
low of the college, and father of the sect of the 
Realists, and his scholar Gulielmus Occam, called 
Doctor Invincibilis, of the same house, and father of 
the sect of the Nomenalists ; betwixt whom there 
falling out a hot dispute one disputation night, 
Scotus being the Dean of the college, and Occam 
(a Bachelor-fellow therein), though the latter got 
the better on't, yet being but an inferior, at parting 
submitted himself, with the rest of the Bachelors, to 
the Dean in this form, Domine, quid faciemus f 
(i. e. Sir, what is your pleasure ?) as it were begging 
punishment for their boldness in arguing ; to whom 
Scotus returned this answer, Ite etfacite quid vultis 
(t. e. Begone, and do as you please). Hereupon 
away they went and broke open the buttery and 
kitchen doors, and plundered all the provisions they 
could lay hands on ; called all their companions out 
of their beds, and made a merry bout on't all night. 
This gave occasion for observing the same diversion 
several times afterwards, whenever the Dean kept 
the Bachelor-fellows at disputation till twelve o'clock 
at night. The last black-night was about 1686." 



54 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



THE FORCE OF IMAGINATION. 

A learned Cantab, who was so deaf as to be obliged 
to use an ear-trumpet, having taken his departure 
from Trinity College, of which he was lately a 
fellow, mounted on his well-fed Rosinante for the 
purpose of visiting a friend, fell in with an acquaint- 
ance by the way side, with whom he was induced 
to dine, and evening was setting in ere he pushed 
forward for his original destination. Warm with 
T. B., he had not gone far ere he let fall the reins 
on the neck of his pegasus, which took its own 
course till he was suddenly roused by its coming to 
a stand-still where four cross roads met, in a part of 
the country to which he was an utter stranger. What 
added to the dilemma, the direction-post had been 
demolished. He luckily espied an old farmer jog- 
ging homeward from market. " Hallo ! my man, 

can you tell me the way to ?" "Tfes, to be 

sure I can. You must go down hin-hinder lane, 
and cross yin-yinder common on the left, then 
youll see a hoi and a pightal and the old mills, 
and " " Stop, stop, my good friend ! " ex- 
claimed our Cantab; " you don't know I'm deaf 
pulling his ear-trumpet out of his pocket as he 
spoke : this the farmer no sooner got a glimpse of, 
than, taking it for a pistol or blunderbuss, and its 
owner for a highwayman, he clapped spurs to his 
horse, and gallopped off at full speed, roaring out for 
mercy as our Cantab bawled for him to stop, the 
muzzle of his horse nosing the tail of the farmer's, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 55 

till they came to an opening in a wood by the road 
side, through which the latter vanished, leaving 
the Cantab solus, after a chase of some miles, — and 
upon inquiry at a cottage, he learnt he was still 
ten or twelve from the place of his destination, 
little short of the original distance he had to ride 
when he first started from Cambridge in the morning. 
This anecdote reminds me of two Oxonians of con- 
siderable celebrity, learning, and singular manners. 
One was the late amiable organist of Dulwich Col- 
lege, the Rev. Onias Linley, son of Mr. Linley, of 
Drury-lane and musical celebrity : he was conse- 
quently brother of Mrs. R. B. Sheridan. He was 
bred at Winchester and New College, and was 
remarkable, when a minor canon at Norwich, in 
Norfolk, for 

HIS ABSENT HABITS, 

And the ridiculous light in which they placed him, 
and for carrying a huge snuff-box in one hand, which 
he constantly kept twirling with the other between 
his ringer and thumb. He once attended a ball at 
the public assembly rooms, when, having occasion 
to visit the temple of Cloacina, he unconsciously 
walked back into the midst of the crowd of beauties 
present, with a certain coverlid under his arm, in 
lieu of his opera hat ; nor was he aware of the 
exchange he had made till a friend gave him a 
gentle hint. He occasionally rode a short distance 
into the country to do duty on a Sunday, when he 
used compassionately to relieve his steed by alighting 



56 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

and walking on, with the horse following, and the 
bridle on his arm. Upon such occasions he fre- 
quently fell into what is called " a brown study," and 
arrived at his destination dragging the bridle after 
him, minus the horse, which had stopped by the way 
to crop grass. He was one day met on the road so 
circumstanced, and reminded of the fact by a gentle- 
man who knew him. " Bless me," said he, with the 
most perfect composure, " the horse was with me 
when I set out. I must go back to seek him." 
And back he went a mile or two, when he found his 
steed grazing by the way, bridled him afresh, and 
reached his church an hour later than usual, much 
to the chagrin of his congregation. The late Dr. 
Adams, one of the first who went out to Demerara 
after the established clergy were appointed to stations 
and parishes in the West Indies by authority, was a 
man of habits very similar to those of Mr. Linley, 
and very similar anecdotes are recorded of him, and 
his oddities are said to have caused some mirth to his 
sable followers. He died in about a year or two, 
much regretted notwithstanding. 



THE EARLY POETS BRED IN THE HALLS OF 
GRANT A, 

" Semper— pauperimus esse," were nearly all blest 
with none or a slender competence. But what 
they wanted in wealth was amply supplied in wit. 
Spenser, Lee, Otway, Ben Jonson, and his son 
Randolph, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Prior, and Kit 



NUTS TO CRACK. 57 

Smart, poets as they were, had fared but so so, had 
they lived by poesy only — and who ever dreamed of 
caring" ought for their posterity. 

Spenser was matriculated a member of Pembroke 
College, Cambridge, the 20th of May, 1569, at the 
age of sixteen, at which early period he is supposed 
to have been under his " sweet fit of poesy," and 
soon after formed the design of his great poem, 
the Faery Queene, stanzas of which, it is said, on 
very good authority, were lately discovered on the 
removal of some of the old wainscoting of the room 
in which he kept in Pembroke College. He took 
B. A. 1573, and M. A. 1576, without succeeding to 
fellowship, died in want of bread, 1599, and was 
buried in Westminster Abbey, according to his 
request, near Chaucer. Camden says of him — 

" Anglica, te vivo, vixit plautisque poesis, 
Nunc moritura, timet, te moriente, mori ! " 

In the common-place-book of Edward, Earl of 
Oxford and Mortimer, preserved amongst the MSS. 
of the British Museum, is the memoranda: — " Lord 
Carteret told me, that when he was Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland, a man of the name of Spenser, imme- 
diately descended from our illustrious poet, came to 
be examined before the Lord Chief Justice, as a 
witness in a cause, and that he was so entirely igno- 
rant of the English language, that they were forced 
to have an interpreter for him. ,, But I have no 
intention to give my readers the blues. " Nat. 
Lee " was a Trinity man, and was, as the folk say, 
" as poor as a church mouse" during his short life, 



58 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

four years of which he passed in Bedlam. An 
envious scribe one day there saw him, and mocked 
his calamity by asking, "If it was not easy to write 
like a madman?" "No, Sir," said he; "but it is 

VERY EASY TO WRITE LIKE A FOOL." 

Otway was bred at St. John's College, Cam- 
bridge. But though his tragedies are still received 
with " tears of approbation," he lived in penury, and 
died in extreme misery, choked, it is said, by a 
morsel of bread given him to relieve his hunger, the 
14th of April, 1685. Ben Jonson, " Rare Ben," 
also " finished his education " at St. John's, nor did 
I ever tread the mazes of its pleasant walks, but 
imagination pictured him and his gifted contempo- 
raries and successors, from the time of the minstrel 
of Arcadia to the days of Kirke White, 

In dalliance with the nine in ev'ry nook, 
A conning nature from her own sweet book. 

But Ben, though " the greatest dramatic poet of 
his age," after he left Cambridge, "worked with a 
trowel at the building of Lincoln's Inn," and died 
poor in everything but fame, in 1637. Ben, however, 
contrived to keep nearly as many "jovial days " in a 
year, as there are saints in the Roman calendar, and 
at a set time held a club at the same Devil Tavern, 
near Temple-bar, to which the celebrated Cambridge 
professor, and reformer of our church music, Dr. 
Maurice Greene, adjourned his concert upon his 
quarrel with Handel, which made the latter say of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 59 

him, with his natural dry humour, " Toctor Creene 
was gone to cle taviU* There Ben and his boon com- 
panions were still extant, when Tom Randolph 
(author of " The Muses' Looking- Glass," &c), a 
student of Trinity College, Cambridge, had ven- 
tured on a visit to London, where, it is said, he 
stayed so long, that he had already had a parley with 
his empty purse, when their fame made him long 
to see Ben and his associates. He accordingly, as 
Handel would have said, vent to de tavil, at their 
accustomed time of meeting ; but being unknown 
to them, and without money, he was peeping into 
the room where they sat, when he was espied by 
Ben, who seeing him in a scholar s thread-bare 
habit, cried out M John Bo-peep, come in." He 
entered accordingly, and they, not knowing the wit 
of their guest, began to rhyme upon the meanness 
of his clothes, asking him if he could not make a 
verse, and, withal, to call for his quart of sack. 
There being but four, he thus addressed them : — 

" I, John Bo-peep, to you four sheep, 

With each one his good fleece, 
If that you are willing to give me five shilling, 

'Tis fifteen pence a-piece." 

" By Jesus," exclaimed Ben (his usual oath), " I 
believe this is my son Randolph ! " which being 
confessed, he was kindly entertained, and Ben ever 
after called him his son, and, on account of his 
learning, gaiety, and humour, and readiness of 
repartee, esteemed him equal to Cartwright. He 
also grew in favour with the wits and poets of the 
metropolis, but was cut off, some say of intemperance, 



60 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

at the age of twenty-nine. His brother was a 
member of Christ Church, Oxford, and printed 
his works in 1638. Amongst the Memorabilia 
Cantabrigice of Milton is the fact, that his personal 
beauty obtained for him the soubriquet of 



" THE LADY OF THE COLLEGE;" 

And that he set a full value on his fine exterior, is 
evident from the imperfect Greek lines, entitled, 
" In Effigie ejus Sculptor em" in Warton's second 
edition of his Poems. Some have supposed he had 
himself in view, in his delineation of the person of 
Adam. Every body knows that his " Paradise 
Lost " brought him and his posterity less than 20/. : 
but every body does not know that there is a Latin 
translation of it, in twelve books, in the Library of 
Trinity College, Cambridge, in MS., the work of 
one Mr. Power, a Fellow of that Society, who 
printed the First Book in 1691, and completed the 
rest at the Bermudas, where his difficulties had 
obliged him to fly, and from whence it was sent 
to Dr. Richard Bentley, to publish and pay his debts 
with. However, in spite of his creditors, it still 
remains in MS. The writer obtained, says Judge 
Hardinge, alluding, I suppose, to " the tempest of 
his mind and of his habits/' the soubriquet of the 
" jEolian Exile" There is also a bust of Milton 
in the Library of Trinity College, and some of his 
juvenile poems, &c, in his own hand-writing. 
Cowley was bred at Trinity College. His bust, 
too, graces its Library, and his portrait its Hall. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 61 



BOTH THESE ALUMNI, 



When students, wrote Latin as well as English 
verses, and the curious in such matters, on reference 
to this work, will be amused by the difference of 
feeling with which their Alma Mater inspired them. 
To Cowley the Bowers of Granta and the Camus 
were the very seat of inspiration ; Milton thought no 
epithet too mean to express their charms : yet, 
says Dyer, in his supplement, " it is difficult to 
conceive a more brilliant example of youthful talent 
than Milton's Latin Poems of that period." Though 
they " are not faultless, they render what was said 
of Gray applicable to Milton — 

1 HE NEVER WAS A BOY.' " 

His mulberry tree, more fortunate than either that 
of Shakspeare, or the pear-tree of his contemporary 
and patron, Oliver Cromwell, is still shown in the 
Fellows' Garden of Christ College, and still " bears 
abundance in fruit-time/' and near it is a drooping- 
ash, planted by the present Marquis of Bute, when a 
student of Christ College. 



CROMWELL'S PEAR-TREE 

I saw cut down, from the window of my sitting-room, 
in Jesus-lane, Cambridge (which happened to over- 
look the Fellows' Garden of Sidney College,) in 



0:2 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

March, 1833. The tree is said to have been planted 
by Cromwell's own hand, when a student at Sidney 
College, and, said the Cambridge Chronicle of the 
11th of the above month, it seems not unlikely that 
the original stock was coeval with the Protector. 
The tree consisted of five stems (at the time it was 
cut down), which rose directly from the ground, and 
which had probably shot up after the main trunk 
had been accidentally or intentionally destroyed. 
Four of these stems had been dead for some years, 
and the fifth was cut down, as stated above. 
* A section of it, at eight feet from the ground, had 
103 consecutive rings, indicating as many years of 
growth for that part. If we add a few more for the 
growth of the portion still lower down, it brings us 
to a period within seventy years of the Restoration ; 
and it is by no means improbable that the original 
trunk may have been at least seventy or eighty years 
old before it was mutilated. The stumps of the five 
stems are still left standing, the longest being eight 
feet high ; and it is intended to erect a rustic seat 
within the area they embrace.'' 

OTHER MEMORIALS OF CROMWELL 

At Sidney College, are his bust, in the Master's 
Lodge, and his portrait in the Library. The first 
was executed by the celebrated Bernini, at the request 
of Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, from a plaster 
impression of the face of Cromwell, taken soon after 
his death. It was obtained by the late learned 
Cambridge Regius Professor of Botany, Thomas 



NUTS TO CRACK. 63 

Marty n, B. D., during" his stay in Italy, and by him 
presented to the Society of Sidney College, of which 
he was a fellow. Lord Cork said it bore " the 
strongest character of boldness, steadiness, sense, 
penetration, and pride." The portrait is unique, 
drawn in crayons, by the celebrated Cooper, and is 
said to be that from which he painted his famous 
miniatures of the Protector. In the College Register 
is a memorandum of Cromwell's admission to the 
society, dated April 23, 1616, to which some one 
has added his character, in Latin, in a different 
hand-writing, and very severe terms. 



DRYDEN CONFINED TO COLLEGE WALLS. 

Dryden, whom some have styled " The True 
Father of English Poetry," was fond of a college 
life, as especially " favourable to the habits of a 
student." He was bred at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, where he resided seven years, during which 
he is said never, like Milton and others, to have 
" wooed the muses." What were his college habits 
is not known. The only notice of him at Trinity 
(where his bust and portrait are preserved, the first 
in the Library, the second in the Hall), whilst an 
undergraduate, is the following entry in the College 
Register, made about two years after his admission : — 
" July 19, 1652. Agreed, then, that Dryden be put 
out of Comons, for a fortnight at least, and that he 
goe not out of the College during the time aforesaid. 



64 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

excepting to Sermons, without express leave from 
the Master or Vice-master (disobedience to whom 
was his fault), and that, at the end of the fortnight, 
he read a confession of his crime in the Hall at the 
dinner-time, at the three fellows' table." 

His contemporary, Dennis the Critic, seems to 
have been less fortunate at Cambridge. The author 
of the " Biographia Dramatica" asserts that he was 

EXPELLED FROM CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

Which is denied by Dr. Kippis, in the ei Biographia 
Britannica," and " when Doctors disagree, who shall 
decide ? " In this case a third doctor steps in for the 
purpose, in the person of the celebrated Master of 
Emmanuel College, Dr. Richard Farmer, who, in a 
humorous letter, printed in the European Maga- 
zine for 1794, says, on turning to the Gesta Book 
of Caius College, under the head, " Sir Dennis sent 
away," appears this entry: "March 4, 1680. At a 
meeting of the Master and Fellows, Sir Dennis 
mulcted 3/. ; his scholarship taken away, and he sent 
out of the college, for assaulting and wounding Sir 
Glenham with a sword." 



PRIOR LAID OUT THE WALKS OF ST. JOHN'S 

College, Cambridge, as I have been told, where he 
was educated, and lived and died a Fellow. After 
he became French Ambassador, and was distinguished 
by his sovereign, he was urged to resign his fellow- 



NUTS TO CRACK. 65 

ship. His reply was (probably not having- much 
faith in the longevity of princes' favours), u Should 
I need it, it will always insure me a bit of mutton 
and a clean shirt f" But it ought also to be added, 
to his honour, that the celebrated Thomas Baker, 
the antiquary, having* been ejected from his fellow- 
ship in the same college, for refusing- to take the 
oaths to William and Mary, Prior g-enerously allowed 
him the proceeds of his. 

The same Cantab was once at the opera, where 
a conceited French composer had taken his seat 
adjoining, and being anxious that the audience should 
know he had written the music, he annoyed our poet 
by humming every air so audibly as to spoil the 
effect of the person's singing the part, one of the 
greatest artistes of the day. Thus annoyed, Prior 
ventured to hiss the singer. Every body was asto- 
nished at the daring, he being a great and deserved 
favourite. The composer hummed again, — again 
Prior hissed the singer, who, enraged at the cir- 
cumstance, demanded " Why he was subject to such 
indignity ?" "I want that fellow to leave off hum- 
ming," said Prior, pointing to the composer, " that I 
may have the pleasure of hearing you sing, Signor." 



STUNG BY A B. 

Dr. Thomas Plume, a former Archdeacon of 
Colchester, was the munificent founder of the Cam- 
bridge Professorship of Astronomy and Experi- 
mental Philosophy, which (as in the case of the late 
Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke and the present George 



bb' OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Prvme, Esq. M.A. and M.P.) he was the first to fill ; 
but he was not as fortunate as the former, to fill his 
chair with unparalleled success, — in fact, his lectures 
were not quite the fashion. He was smarting- under 
this truth, when he one day met Dr. Pearce in the 
streets of Cambridge, the Master of Jesus' College, 
whom he addressed with, " Doctor, the}' call my lec- 
tures Plum-B-ian, which is very uncivil. I don't at all 
like it, Dr. Pearce.'' " I suppose the B. stung you," 
rejoined the latter. Here we may not inappropriately 
introduce a trifle, hit off between Dr. Pearce and the 
woman who had the care of the Temple Gardens, 
when he was master there. It is a rule to keep them 
close shut during divine servioe on Sundays ; but the 
Doctor being indisposed, and having no grounds 
attached to his residence save the church-yard, wished 
to seize the quiet hour for taking a little air and 
exercise. He accordingly rung the garden bell, and 
Rachel made her appearance ; but she flatly told him 
she should not let him in, as it was against the 
Benchers' orders. " But I am the Master of the 
Temple," said Dr. P. " The more shame for you/' 
said Rachel, " you ought to set a better example ; ? ' 
and the Doctor retired dead beat. 



A NEST OF SAXONISTS. 

Queen's College, Oxford, was called " a nest of 

mists" towards the close of the sixteenth century, 

when those learned antiquarians and Saxonists, Raw- 

linson and Thwaites, flourished there. It is recorded 

of the latter, in Nichols's Bowyer, that he said, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 67 

writing of the state of the college, " We want Saxon 
Lexicons. I have fifteen young students in that 
language, and but one Soraner for them all." Our 
Cambridge gossip, 

COLE, RELATES A PLEASANT MISTAKE, 

(taken notice of by Warton also in the first volume 
of his History of English Poetry) of a brother 
Cantab's having undertaken to translate the Scrip- 
tures into Welsh, and rendering vials of wrath 
(meaning vessels — Rom. v. 8) by the Welsh word 
Crythan, signifying crowds or fiddles, " The Greek 
word being fyiakas" he adds, " it is probable he 
translated from the English only, where finding 
vials, he mistook it for viols." The translator was 
Dr. Morgan, who died Bishop of St. Asaph, in 1604. 



MINDING THE ROAST. 

Lord Nugent, on-dit, once called on an old college 
acquaintance, then a country divine of great simplicity 
of manners, at a time when his housekeeper was 
from home on some errand, and he had undertaken 
to mind the roast. This obliged him to invite his 
lordship into the kitchen, that he might avoid the 
fate of King Alfred. Our dame's stay exceeded the 
time anticipated, and the divine having to bury a 
corpse, he begged Lord N. to take his turn at the 
spit, which he accordingly did, till the housekeeper 
arrived to relieve him. This anecdote reminds me 
of the following 

f 2 



ti8 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



SPECIMEN OF A COLLEGE EXERCISE, 

By the Younger Bowyer, written at St. John's College, 
Cambridge, November 29, 1719. 

" Ne quicquam sapit, qui sibi ipsi non sapit.' 

A goodly parson once there was, 

To 's maid would chatter Latin ; 
(For that he was, I think, an ass, 

At least the rhyme comes pat in) . 

One day the house to prayers were met, 

With well united hearts ; 
Below, a goose was at the spit, 

To feast their grosser parts. 

The godly maid to prayers she came, 

If truth the legends say, 
To hear her master English lame, 

Herself to sleep and pray. 

The maid, to hear her worthy master, 

Left all alone her kitchen ; 
Hence happened much a worse disaster 

Than if she'd let the bitch in. 

While each breast burns with pious flame, 

All hearts with ardours beat, 
The goose's breast did much the same 

With too malicious heat. 

The parson smelt the odours rise ; 

To 's belly thoughts gave loose, 
And plainly seemed to sympathise 

With his twice-murdered goose. 

He knew full well self-preservation 

Bids piety retire, 
Just as the salus of a nation 

Lays obligation higher. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 69 

He stopped, and thus held forth his Clerum, 

While him the maid did stare at, 
Hoc faciendum ; sed alterum 

Non negligendum erat. 

Parce tuum Vatum sceleris damnare." 



TULIP-TIME. 

Writing" of the death of a former Master of Mag- 
dalen College, " whose whole delight was horses, 
dogs, sporting, &c.," which, says Cole, happened on 
the first of September, the legal day for partridge- 
shooting to begin, " it put me in mind of the late 
Dr. Walker, Vice-master of Trinity, a great florist 
(and founder of the Botanical Garden at Cambridge), 
who, when told of a brother florist's death, by shoot- 
ing himself in the spring, immediately exclaimed, 
1 Good God ! is it possible ? Now, at the beginning 
of tulip-time ! ' " 



THE COLLEGE BELL. 

When Dr. Barrett, Prebend of St. Paul's, was a 
student at Peter-house, Cambridge, he happened to 
make one of a party of collegians, where it was pro- 
posed that each gentleman should toast his favourite 
belle ; when it came to his turn, he facetiously gave 
" the college-bell !" 



COLLEGE FUN. 



" Previous to my attending Cambridge," says 
Henry Angelo, in his Reminiscences, " one of my 



70 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

scholars (whom I had taught at Westminster School), 
at Trinity College, engaged an Irish fencing-master, 
named Fitzpatrick," more remarkable for his native 
humour than science, and when he had taken 
too much of the cratur, " was amusing to the col- 
legians, who had engaged him merely to keep up 
their exercise." One day, during a bout, some wag 
placed a bottle of his favourite " mountain dew" 
(whisky) on the chimney-piece, which proved so 
attractive, " that as his sips increased, so did the 
numerous hits he received, till the first so far pre- 
vailed, aided by exertion and the heat of the weather, 
that he lay, tandem, to all appearance dead." To 
keep the fun up, he was stripped and laid out like 
a corpse, with a shroud on, a coffin close to him, and 
four candles placed on each side, ready to light on 
his recovery. This jeu de plaisanterie might have 
been serious ; " however, Master Push-carte took care 
not to push himself again into the same place." 



THE KING OF DENMARK AT CAMBRIDGE, 

When the late King of Denmark was in England, 
in 1763, when he visited Eton, &c, he is said to have 
made a brief sojourn at Cambridge, where he was 
received with " all the honours," and took up his 
abode (as is usual for persons of his rank) in the 
lodge of the Master of Trinity. In his majesty's 
establishments for learned purposes, as well as through- 
out all Germany, &c., no provision is made for lodging 
and otherwise providing for the comforts of students, as 
in the two English universities ; and when he surveyed 



NUTS TO CRACK. 71 

the principal court of Trinity, he is said to have had 
so little notion of an English university, that he 
asked " whether that court did not comprise the whole 
of the university of Cambridge ? " This royal anec- 
dote reminds me that his present gracious Majesty, 

WILLIAM THE FOURTH, ANNOUNCED HIS INTEN- 
TION TO VISIT CAMBRIDGE. 

As in duty bound, upon his accession to the throne 
of his ancestors, a loyal congratulatory address wa.s 
voted by the members of the University of Cambridge 
in full senate. This was shortly afterwards presented 
to his Majesty at St. James's Palace by the then Vice- 
Chancellor, Dr. George Thackery, D.D., Provost of 
King's College, at the head of a large body of the 
heads of colleges, and others, en robe. His majesty 
not only received it most graciously, but with that 
truly English expression that goes home to the 
bosom of every Briton, told Dr. Thackery he w should 
shortly take pot-luck with him in Cambridge." The 
term, too, is worthy of particular notice, since it 
expresses his majesty's kind consideration for the 
contents of the university chest, and the pockets of its 
members. Oxford, it is well known, is still smarting 
under the heavy charges incident upon the memorable 
visit of his late Majesty, George the Fourth, in 1814, 
with the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia 
and their suites* It would be no draw-back upon 
the popularity of princes if they did take "pot-luck" 
with their subjects oftener than they do. Let there 
be no drawback upon hospitality, but let the " feast 
of reason and the now of soul" suffice for the costly 



72 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

bmujuct. In olden times, our monarchs took pot-luck 
both at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, without 
their subjects being the less loyal. Queen Elizabeth 
and James the First and Second were frequent visiters 
at both those seats of learning. Elizabeth, indeed, 
that flower of British monarchs, suffered no de- 
signing minister to shake her confidence in her 
people's loyalty. She did not confine her move- 
ments to the dull routine of two or three royal 
palaces, — her palace was her empire. She went 
about " doing good" by the light of her counte- 
nance. She, and not her minister, was the people's 
idol. I therefore come to the conclusion, that the 
expressed determination of his majesty, William the 
Fourth, to take pot-luck with his good people of the 
University of Cambridge, is the dawn of a return of 
those wholesome practices of which we read in the 
works of our annalists, when 

" 'Twas merry in the hall, 
And their beards wagged all." 

Wood relates, amongst other humorous incidents, 
that 

DURING QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SECOND VISIT TO 
OXFORD, 

In September, 1592, besides plays, &c, there was a 
disputation in law and physic, and, amongst many 
questions, was one, — " Whether the air, or meat, or 
drink, did most change a man 9" and a merry Doctor 
of that faculty, named Richard Ratcliife, lately Fellow 
of Merton College, but now Principal of St. Alban's 
Hall, going about to produce the negative, showed 



NUTS TO CRACK. 73 

forth a big, large body, a great fat belly, a side waist, 
all, as he said, so changed by meat and drink, desiring 
to see any other so metamorphosed by the air. But 
it was concluded (by the Moderator) in the affirma- 
tive, that air had the greater power of change. One 
of the questions (the next day) was, — " Whether 
it be lawful to dissemble in the cause of religion?" 
written thus, says Gutch, " Non est dissimulandum 
in causa religionis ;" " which being looked upon as a 
nice question," continues Wood, " caused much 
attention from the courtly auditory. One argument, 
more witty than solid, that was urged by one of the 
opponents, was, * It is lawful to dispute of religion, 
therefore 'tis lawful to dissemble ;' and so going on, 
said, < I myself now do that which is lawful, but I 
do now dissemble ; ergo, it is lawful to dissemble. 
(Id quod nunc ego, de rebus divinis disputans, ego 
dissimulare ; sed quod nunc ego, de rebus divinis dis- 
putam, ego dissimulare est licitum); at which her 
majesty and all the auditory were very merry." 



WHEN QUEEN ELIZABETH FIRST VISITED 
CAMBRIDGE, 

In the year 1564, she took up her residence at 
the lodge of the Provost of King's College, which 
stood near the east end of King's Chapel. We well 
remember the old pile and the solitary trees that 
branched beside ; and much as we admire the splen- 
did improvements to which they have given place, 
we could almost find it in our hearts to express 



74 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

regret at the removal of those landmarks of the 
topographist. The hall was her guard- chamber, the 
dining-room her presence-chamber, and the gallery 
and adjoining rooms her private apartments. Her 
visit lasted five days, during which she was enter- 
tained with comedies, tragedies, orations, disputations, 
and other academical exercises. She personally 
visited every college,' and is said to have been so 
pleased with the venerable, solemn, and scholastic 
appearance of Pembroke Hall, that she saluted it 
with the words — 

" O Domus antiqua et religiosa ! " 



THE FIRST DISSENTER IN ENGLAND, 

According to the author of Historical Anecdotes, 
&c, was Thomas Cartwright, B.D., Lady Margaret's 
Professor and Fellow of Trinity College. He and 
Thomas Preston (afterwards Master of Trinity Hall), 
says Fuller, during Queen Elizabeth's visit at Cam- 
bridge, in 1564, were appointed two of the four dis- 
putants in the philosophy-act before her Majesty. 
" Cartwright had dealt most with the muses ; Preston 
with the graces, adorning his learning with comely 
carriage, graceful gesture, and pleasing pronunciation. 
Cartwright disputed like a great, Preston like a 
gentile scholar, being a handsome man ; and the 
Queen, upon a parity of deserts, always preferred 
properness of person in conferring her favours. Here- 
upon, with her looks, words, and deeds she favoured 



NUTS TO CRACK. 75 

Preston, calling- him her scholler, as appears by his 
epitaph in Trinity Hall chappell. 

1 Thomas Preston^e, Scholarem, 
1 Quern dixit princeps Elizabetha suum,' &c. 

Insomuch/' continues Fuller, " that, for his good 
disputing-, and excellent acting-, in the tragedy of 
Dido, she bestowed on him a pension of 20 lib. a 
year ; whilst Cartwright received neither reward nor 
commendation, whereof he not only complained to 
his inward friends in Trinity College, but also, after 
her Majesty's neglect of him, began to wade into 
divers opinions against her ecclesiastical govern- 
ment." And thus, according to the authority first 
cited, he became the first Dissenter in England, and 
was deprived, subsequently, as a matter of course, of 
both his fellowship and professorship. 

It was most probably for the entertainment of the 
Royal Elizabeth, that one Thomas Still, M.A., of 
Christ's College, Cambridge, afterwards Bishop of 
Bath and Wells, composed and produced 

THE FIRST ENGLISH PLAY EXTANT : 

A fact no Cantab need blush at, proh pudor, though 
the plot is none of the sublimest. It was printed as 
early as 1575, with the following 

TITLE : 

« A ryght pythy, pleasant, and merie Comedie, 
entytuled Gammer Gurton's Needle ; played on the 
stage not long ago in Christe's Colledge, in Cam- 
bridge, made by Mr. S. Master of Arts. Imprynted 



76 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

at London, in Fleete Streeate, beneth the Conduit, 
at the signe of Sainte John Evangelist, by Thomas 
Colwell." Though altogether of a comic cast, it 
was not deficient in genuine humour, and is a 
curious sample of the simplicity which prevailed in 
this country, in the early days of dramatic art. It is 
in metre, is spun out into five regular acts, and an 
awful piece it is, as may be seen by the following 

BRIEF SKETCH OF THE PLOT. 

Gammer Gurton having lost her needle, a great 
hunt is made in search of it, and her boy is directed 
to blow the embers of an expiring fire, in order to 
light a candle to help the search. The witch of a 
cat has, in the meantime, got into the chimney, with 
her two fiery eyes. The boy cries, " it is the devil 
of a fire ! " for when he puffs, it is out, — and when 
he does not, it is in. " Stir it ! " bawls Gammer 
Gurton. The boy does her bidding, and the cat 
(the fire as he imagines) flies forthwith amongst a 
pile of wood. " The house will be burnt, all hands 
to work ! " roars the boy, and the cat is discovered 
by a priest (more cunning than the rest). This ends 
the episode, with which the main plot and catastrophe 
vie. Gammer Gurton, it seems, had, the day before, 
been mending her man Hodge's breeches. Now 
Hodge, in some game of merriment, was to be 
punished, for some default, with three slaps on the 
breech, to be administered by the brawny hand of 
one of his fellow-bumpkins. To that end, his head 
is laid in Gammer Gurton's lap; the first slap is 



NUTS TO CRACK. 77 

given, Hodge bellows out with pain, and, oh ! joyful 
announcement, on searching for the cause of his 
affliction, the needle is discovered, -buried up to the 
eye in poor Hodge's posterior portion. The needle 
is then extracted with becoming demonstrations, and 
the curtain falls. 

Amongst other interesting matters associated with 
the memory of Queen Elizabeth (beside that of her 
having given Cambridge that admirable body of 
statutes upon which all laws for their governance 
still continue to be framed), are the following memo- 
randa, extracted by Dyer from Baker's MSS. in the 
public library of the University : — 

" The 26th daye of Julie, 1578, the Queene's 
Majestie came in her progresse intended to Norfolk, 
to Audley End, at the town of Waldren, accompa- 
nied by the Lorde Treasurer, High Chancellor of the 
University of Cambridge. The Vice Chancellor and 
Masters of Colleges thoughte meete and convenient 
for the dischardge of dutie, that the said Vice-Chan- 
cellor and Hedds of Coll. should shewe themselves of 
the Courte, and welcome her Grace into these quar- 
ters." About the end of his oration, the orator 
(Air. Bridgewater of King's College) makes mention, 
that u Mr. Doctor Howland, then vice-chancellor, 
maketh his three ordinarie curtesies, and then kneel- 
ing at her Majesty's feete, presenting unto her — 

A NEWE TESTAMENT IX GREEK. 

Of Robert Stephens's first printing, folio, bound in 
redd velvett, and lymmed with gold ; the arms of 
England sett upon eche syde of the booke very 



78 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

fain ; and on the thirds leafe of the booke, being 
faire and cleane paper, was also sett and painted in 
colours the arms of the Universitie, with these 
writings following : — Regiae Majestati deditissimse 
Academiae Cantab rigiensis Insignia (viz. quatuor 
Leones cum Bibl. &c.) Also, with the booke, the 
Vice-Chancellor presented a pair of gloves, perfumed 
and garnished, with embroiderie and goldsmithe's 
wourke, pr. 60s. and these verses : — 

" SEMPER UNA. 

" Una quod es semper, quod semper es optima, Princeps, 
Quam bene conveniunt hsec duo verba tibi ? 
Quod pia, quod prudens, quod casta, innuba virgo 
Semper es, hoc etiam semper es una modo. 

" Et populum quod ames, populo quod amata vicissim 
Semper es, hie constans semper et una manes, 
O utinam ; quoniam sic semper es una, liceret 
Una te nobis semper, Eliza, frui ? " 

Since Cambridge has the merit of producing the 
first English plat/, it is but justice here to add, that 

THE SCHOLARS OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, 
INVENTED MOVEABLE SCENES. 

This merit is claimed for them by the Oxford his- 
torians, and allowed by the historians of the stage, 
though they have not agreed of the exact period. 
We are informed, in Leland's Collectanea, that " the 
stage did vary three times in the acting of one tra- 
gedy." In other words, there were three scenes 
employed ; but these, it is said by Chalmers, in his 
History of Oxford University, were the invention of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 79 

Inigo Jones ; and the exhibition, it appears, took 
place in the Hall of Christ Church, in 1636 (the 
year Wood places the invention in), for the enter- 
tainment of the unfortunate Charles the First and 
his Queen, when, says our annalist, a comedy was 
performed for their amusement, entitled, " The 
Passions Calmed, or the Settling- of the Floating*," 
written by Strode, the Public Orator, and moveable 
scenery introduced with suitable variations ; and 
though there is pretty conclusive evidence that this 
was not the first time moveable scenes, &c. had been 
introduced, it is evident they had not come into 
general use, from the fact that, after the departure of 
the King and his suite, the dresses and scenery were 
sent to Hampton Court, at the express desire of the 
Queen, but with a wish, suggested by the Chancellor 
of Oxford, the ill-fated Archbishop Laud, that they 
might not come into the hands of the common players, 
which was accordingly promised. Leland thinks, 
however, that moveable scenes were better managed, 
before this, at Cambridge ; and I know not, he says, 
whether the invention may not be carried back to 
the year 1583, when the celebrated Polish prince, 
Alesco, was at Oxford, and for whose entertain- 
ment, says Wood ( who gives an interesting account 
of all the particulars of that famous Oxford gaudy), 
the tragedy of Dido was acted in the Hall of Christ 
Church, decorated with scenes illustrative of the 
play, and the exhibition of " the tempest, wherein 
it rained small comfits, rose-water, and new artificial 
snow, was very strange to the beholders." But 
other authorities place the invention in 1605. when 



80 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

JAMES THE FIRST AND HIS COURT CAME TO 
OXFORD, 

And was entertained in the Hall of Christ Church, 
" with the Latin comedy of Vertumnus, written by 
Dr. Matthew Gwinne, of St. Johns College, Oxford, 
and performed by the students of that house, without 
borrowing- a single actor ; and it was upon this occa- 
sion that the humming of his Majesty took place, 
referred to in my Preface. In 1621, when James 
and his court happened to be at Woodstock, the 
scholars of Christ Church enacted Barton Holyday's 
comedy of T^oya/wo, or the Marriage of the Arts : 
but his Majesty relished it so little, as to offer several 
times to withdraw, and was only prevented by some 
of his courtiers representing that his doing so would 
be a cruel disappointment. This incident gave rise 
to the well-known epigram — 

" At Christ-Church marriage, done before the king, 
" Lest that those mates should want an offering, 
" The king himself did offer — what, I pray ? 
u He offered twice or thrice to go away." 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE SEEMED RIVALS 

At this period, Wood states, in his Annals, that 
when King James was entertained at Oxford, in 
1605, divers Cambridge scholars went thither out of 
novelty, to see and hear ; and some that pretended 
to be wits made copies of verses on that solemnity, 
of which, he says, I have met with one that runs — 



NUTS TO CRACK. 81 

To Oxonforde the king is gone, 

With all his mighty peers, 
That hath in grace maintained us, 

These four or five long years. 

Such a king he hath been, 
As the like was never seen : 
Knights did ride by his side, 
Evermore to be his guide : 
A thousand knights, and forty thousand knights, 
Knights of forty pounds a-year. 

which some attribute to one Lake. This example, 
he adds, was followed by the Oxonians, when James 
visited Cambridge in 1614, and "many idle songs " 
were made by them upon the proceedings at Cam- 
bridge, the most celebrated of which is the one 
entitled, " A Grave Poem, as it was presented in 
Latin by Divines and others, before his Majesty at 
Cambridge, by way of Enterlude,, stiled < Liber novus 
de adventu Regis ad Cantabrigiam,' faithfully done 
into English, with some liberal advantage, made 
rather to be sung than red, to the tune of ' Bonny 
Nell,' " which poem, says Wood, may be seen in the 
works of the witty Bishop Corbet (by whom it was 
written), "printed in 1647." But in so saying our 
annalist not only lies under a mistake, but Mr. 
Gutch, his editor, has not detected it. The poem 
is not in the edition of 1647, but in that of 1672, 
which is the third, corrected and enlarged, and 
" printed by J. C. for William Crooke, at the 
Green Dragoon, without Temple Bar;" as all may 
see who will consult the said editions, both extant in 
the library of the British Museum. The poem is 
comprised in twenty-six stanzas, as follows : — 

G 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

It is not yet a fortnight, since 

Lutetia entertained our Prince, 

And wasted both a studied toy, 

As long as was the siege of Troy : 

And spent herself for full five days 
In speeches, exercise, and plays. 

To trim the town, great care before 
Was tane by th' Lord Vice -Chancellor, 
Both morn and eve he cleared the way, 
The streets he gravell'd thrice a day ; 
One stripe of March-dust for to see, 
No Provost would give more than he. 

Their colledges were new be-painted, 
Their founders eke were new be -sainted ; 
Nothing escaped, nor post, nor door, 
Nor gete, nor rail, nor b d, nor wh- 



You could not know (oh, strange mishap !) 
Whether you saw the town or map. 

But the pure house of Emanuel, 

Would not be like proud Jesebel, 

Nor shew herself before the king 

An hypocrite, or painted thing : 

But that the ways might all prove fair, 
Conceiv'd a tedious mile of prayer. 

Upon the look'd-for seventh of March, 
Out went the townsmen all in starch, 
Both band and bead into the field, 
Where one a speech could hardly wield ; 
For needs he would begin his stile, 
The king being from him half a mile. 

They gave the king a piece of plate, 

Which they hop'd never came too late ; 

And cry'd, Oh ! look not in, great king, 

For there is in it just nothing : 

And so preferred with time and gate, 
A speech as empty as their plate. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 83 

Now, as the king came near the town, 

Each one ran crying up and down, 

Alas, poor Oxford, thou'rt undone, 

For now the king's past Trampington, 

And rides upon his brave grey Dapple, 
Seeing the top of King's-Colledge chappel. 

Next rode his lordship on a nag, 

Whose coat was blue, whose ruff was shag, 

And then began his reverence 

To speak most eloquent non-sense : 

See how (quoth he) most mighty prince, 

For very joy my horse doth wince. 

What cryes the town ? what we ? (said he) 
What cryes the University ? 
What cryes the boys ? what every thing ? 
Behold, behold, yon comes the king : 

And every period he bedecks, 

With En et Ecce venit Rex, 

Oft have I warn'd (quoth he) our dirt, 

That no silk stockings should be hurt ; 

But we in vain strive to be fine, 

Unless your Grace's sun doth shine ; 

And with the beams of your bright eye, 
You will be pleased our streets to dry. 

Now come we to the wonderment, 

Of Christendom, and eke of Kent, 

The Trinity ; which to surpass, 

Doth Deck her spokesman by a glass : 
Who, clad in gay and silken weeds, 
Thus opes his mouth, hark how he speeds. 

I wonder what your Grace doth here, 

Who had expected been 12 year, 

And this your son, fair Carolus, 

That is so Jacobissimus ; 

There's none, of all your Grace refuses, 
You are most welcome to our Muses. 
g2 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Although we have no bells to jingle, 
Yet can we shew a fair quadrangle, 
Which, though it ne'er was graced with king, 
Yet sure it is a goodly thing : 

My warning's short, no more I'll say, 
Soon you shall see a gallant play. 

But nothing was so much admired 
As were their plays, so well attired ; 
Nothing did win more praise of mine, 
Than did their Actors most divine : 

So did they drink their healths divinely. 
So did they skip and dance so finely. 

Their plays had sundry grave wise factors, 
A perfect diocess of Actors 
Upon the stage ; for I am sure that 
There was both bishop, pastor, curat: 
Nor was this labour light or small, 
The charge of some was pastoral. 

Our plays were certainly much worse, 

For they had a brown hobby-horse, 

Which did present unto his Grace 

A wondrous witty ambling pace : 

But we were chiefly spoyl'd by that 
Which was six hours of God knows what. 

His Lordship then was in a rage, 

His Lordship lay upon the stage, 

His Lordship cry'd, All would be marr'd :. 

His Lordship lov'd a-life the guard, 
And did invite those mighty men, 
To what think you ? Even to a Hen. 

He knew he was to use their might 
To help to keep the door at night, 
And well bestow' d he though his Hen, 
That they might Tolebooth Oxford men. 
He thought it did become a lord 
To threaten with that bug-bear word. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 85 

Now pass we to the Civil Law, 
And eke the doctors of the spaw, 
Who all perform' d their parts so well, 
Sir Edward Ratclijfbore the bell, 

Who was, by the king's own appointment. 

To speak of Spells and Magic Ointment. 

The Doctors of the Civil Law, 
Urged ne'er a reason worth a straw ; 
And though they went in silk and satten, 
They Thomson-like clip'd the king's Latine j 

But yet his Grace did pardon then 

All treasons against Priscian. 

Here no man spoke aught to the point, 
But all they said was out of joint ; 
Just like the Chappel ominous, 
In th' Colledge called God with tis : 

Which truly doth stand much awry, 

Just north and south, yes verily. 

Philosophers did well their parts, 

Which proved them Masters of the Arts ; 

Their Moderator was no fool, 

He far from Cambridge kept a school : 
The country did such store afford, 
The Proctors might not speak a word. 

But to conclude, the king was pleased, 
And of the court the town was eased : 
But Oxford though (dear sister hark it) 
The king is gone but to New-Market, 

And comes again ere it be long, 

Then you may sing another song. 

The king being gone from Trinitie, 

They make a scramble for degree ; 

Masters of all sorts and all ages, 

Keepers, subsizers, lackayes, pages, 

Who all did throng to come abroad, 
With pray make me now, good my Lord. 



86 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

They prest his lordship wondrous hard, 
His lordship then did want the guard, 
So did they throng him for the nonce, 
Till he bless them all at once, 

And cry'd Hodiissime : 

Omnes Magistri estote. 

Nor is this all which we do sing, 
For of your praise the world must ring : 
Reader, unto your tackling look, 
For there is coming forth a book, 
Will spoyl Joseph Bernesius 
The sale of Rex Platonicus. 



His Majesty was, as usual, entertained with speeches, 
disputations, and dramatic exhibitions. Fuller re- 
lates, that the following 

EXTRAORDINARY DIVINITY ACT, 

Or Disputation, was kept at Cambridge before this 
prince, during this visit, where Dr. John Davenant 
(afterwards Bishop of Sarum) was respondent, and 
Dr. Richardson, amongst others, opponent. The 
question was maintained, in the negative, concerning 
the excommunicating of kings. Dr. Richardson 
vigorously pressed the practice of St. Ambrose, who 
excommunicated the emperor Theodosius, — inso- 
much, says Fuller, that the king, in a great passion, 
returned, — " Profecto fuit hoc ah Ambrosio inso- 
lentissimc factum." To which Dr. R. rejoined, — 
" Responsum verd Regium y et Alexandre) dignum, 

hoc non est argumenta dissolvere, sed desecare" 

and so, sitting down, discontinued from any further 



NUTS TO CRACK. 87 

argument. It was for the entertainment of James 
during- this visit, that 



THE FAMOUS CAMBRIDGE LATIN COMEDY. 

Entitled Ignoramus, was first enacted. It originated 
in a dispute on the question of precedency, in 1611, 
when the Mayor, whose name was Thomas Smart, 
had seated himself in a superior place in the Guild- 
hall of the town, in the presence of the Vice- 
Chancellor of the University, who asserted his right 
to the same ; hut the Mayor refused to resign the 
seat, till the Vice-Chancellor's attendants forcibly 
ejected him. The dispute was laid before the Privy 
Council, who decided in favour of the Vice-Chan- 
cellor. But during the progress of the affair, the 
Recorder of Cambridge, named Brankyn, stoutly 
defended the Mayor and Corporation against the 
rights of the University. This it was that induced 
the author of the play, Geo. Ruggle, a Fellow of 
Clare-Hall, to shoio him up, in the pedantic, crafty, 
pragmatical character of Ignoramus ; and if lawyer 
Brankyn, it is said, had not actually set the dispute 
agoing, he greatly contributed to keep it alive. At 
this time King James had long been expected to 
visit Cambridge, who had a strong prejudice against 
lawyers, and a ruling passion to be thought the 
patron of literature. The circumstances suggested 
to Ruggle the propriety of exposing lawyer Brankyn 
before his Majesty, in the above character, and to 
render it the more forcible, he resolved to adopt the 
common-law forms, and the cant and barbarous 



88 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

phraseology of lawyers in the ordinary discourse. 
It was, therefore, necessary that he should make 
himself master of that dialect, in which almost the 
best amongst them were accustomed to write and 
even to discourse ; a jargon, says Wilson, in his 
Memorabilia Cantabrigice, could not but be offensive 
to a classical ear. He, therefore, took more than 
ordinary pains to acquaint himself with the technical 
terms of the profession, and to mark the abuse of 
them, of which he has admirably availed himself in 
the formation of the character of Ignoramus, who 
not only transacts business, but " woos in language 
of the Pleas and Bench." The comedy was enacted 
before his Majesty by the members of the University, 
and he was so much delighted with, on dit, either the 
wit or absurdity, that he caused it to be played a 
second time, and once at Newmarket. During one 
of these representations, says Dr. Peckard, formerly 
Master of Magdalen College, in his Life of Mr. Farrer, 
" the King called out aloud, i Treason ! Treason ! ' 
The gentlemen about him being anxious to know 
what disturbed his Majesty, he said, ' That the writer 
and performers had acted their parts so well, that he 
should die of laughter.' " It was during the per- 
formance of this play, according to Rapin and others, 
that James was first struck with the personal beauty 
of George Villiers, who afterwards became Duke of 
Buckingham, and supplanted Somerset in his favour. 
Thomas Gibbons, Esq. says, in his Collection, form- 
ing part of the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, 
(No. 980, art. 173.) that " the comedy of Ignoramus, 
supposed to be by Mr. Ruggle, is but a translation 



NUTS TO CRACK. 89 

of the Italian comedy of Baptista Porta, entitled 
Trapvlario, as may be seen by the comedy itself, in 
Clare-hall Library, with Mr. Ruggle's notes and 
alterations thereof." A literary relique that is said 
to have now disappeared ; but it is to be hoped, for 
the credit of a learned Society, that it is a mistake. 
Dyer, in his Privileges of Cambridge (citing vol. ii. 
fol. 149 of Hare's MSS.) gives the judgment of the 
Earl Marshal of England, which settled this famous 
controversy. The original document is extant in 
the Crown Office, in these words : — " I do set down, 
&c. that the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge is to be 
taken in commission before the Mayor. King 
James, also, in the third of his raigne, by letters 
under the privy signett, commandeth the Lord 
Ellesmere, Chancellor of England, 

TO PLACE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR BEFORE THE 
MAYOR, 

in all commissions of the peace or otherwise, where 
publick shew of degrees is to be made." 



AN OXONIAN AND A BISHOP, 

Who had half a score of the softer sex to lisp 
" Papa," not one of whom his lady was conjuror 
enough " to get off," was one day accosted in Pic- 
cadilly by an old Oxford chum, with, " I hope I see 
your Lordship well." " Pretty well, for a man 
who is daily smothered in petticoats, and has ten 
daughters and a wife to carve for," was the reply. 



90 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



BRIEF NOTICE OF THE BOAR'S HEAD CAROL, AS 
SUNG IN QUEENS COLLEGE, OXFORD, ON 
CHRISTMAS DAY. 

" The earliest collection of Christmas carols sup- 
posed to have been published," says Hone, in his 
E very-Day Book, " is only known from the last leaf 
of a volume, printed by Wynkyn Worde, in the year 
1521. This precious scrap was picked up by Tom 
Hearne ; Dr. Rawlinson purchased it at his decease 
in a volume of tracts, and bequeathed it to the 
Bodleian Library. There are two carols upon it : 
one, ' a caroll of huntynge,' is reprinted in the last 
edition of Juliana Berner's ' Boke of St. Alban's ; ' 
the other, < a caroll bringing in the boar's head,' is 
in Mr. Dibdin's edition of " Ames," with a copy 
of it as it is now sung in Queen's College, Oxford, 
every Christmas Day. Dr. Bliss of Oxford also 
printed on a sheet, for private distribution, a few- 
copies of this, and Anthony Wood's version of it, 
with notices concerning the custom, from the hand- 
writing of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the Bod- 
leian Library. Ritson, in his ill-tempered < Obser- 
vations on Warton's History of English Poetry,' 
(1782, 4to., p. 37,) has a Christmas carol upon 
bringing up the boar's head, from an ancient MS. 
in his possession, wholly different from Dr. Bliss's. 
The 'Bibliographical Miscellanies' (Oxford, 1814, 
4to.) contains seven carols from a collection in one 
volume, in the possession of Dr. Cotton, of Christ- 
Church College, Oxford, < imprynted at London, in 



/-O— 




/ 



NUTS TO CRACK. 91 

the Poultry, by Richard Kele, dwelling" at the longe 
shop vnder Saynt Myldrede's Chyrche,'" probably 
between 1546 and 1552. " I had an opportunity 
of perusing- this exceedingly curious volume (Mr. 
Hone), which is supposed to be unique, and has 
since passed into the hands of Mr. Freeling." " Ac- 
cording to Aubrey's MS., in the Coll. Ashmol. Mus., 
Oxford," says a writer in the Morning Herald of the 
25th of Dec, 1833, " before the last Civil Wars, in 
gentlemen's houses, at Christmas, the first dish that 
was brought to the table was a boars head, with a 
lemon in his mouth. At Queen's College, Oxford/' 
adds this writer, " they still retain this custom ; the 
bearer of it brings it into the hall, singing, to an old 
tune, an old Latin rhyme, " Caput apri defer o," &c. 
" The carol, according to Hearne, Ames, Warton, 
and Ritson," says Dr. Dibdin, in his edition of the 
second, is as follows : — 

A CAROL BRINGING IN THE BORES HEED. 

Caput apri differ o 

Reddens laudes domino. 
The bore's heed in hande bring I, 
With garlands gay and rosemary, 
I praye you all synge merely, 

Qui estis in convivio. 

The bores heed I understande 
Is the thefte servyce in this lande, 
Take where ever it be fande, 
Servite cum cantico. 

Be gladde lordes bothe more and lasse, 
For this hath ordeyned our stewarde, 
To chere you all this Christmasse, 
The bores heed with mustarde. 



\)'2 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

11 This carol (says Warton), with many alterations, 
ot retained at Queen's College, Oxford/' though 
" other ancient carols occur with Latin burthens or 
Latin intermixtures." But, " Being anxious to obtain 
a correct copy of this ballad," says Dr. Dibdin, in 
his Ames, " as I had myself heard it sung in the Hall 
of Queen's College, I wrote to the Rev. Mr. Dickin- 
son, Tutor of the College, to favour me with an 
account of it : his answer, which may gratify the 
curious, is here subjoined. 

" ' Queens College, June 7 th, 1811. 

u < Dear Sir, — I have much pleasure in trans- 
mitting you a copy of the old Boars Head Song, 
as it has been sung in our College-hall, every 
Christmas Day, within my remembrance. There 
are some barbarisms in it, which seem to betoken its 
antiquity. It is sung to the common chaunt of the 
prose version of the Psalms in cathedrals ; at least, 
whenever I have attended the service at Magdalen 
or New College Chapels, I have heard the Boar's 
Head strain continually occurring in the Psalms. 

" ■ The boar's head in hand bring I, 
Bedeck' d with bays and rosemary ; 
And I pray you, my masters, be merry, 
Quot estis in convivio. 
Caput apri defero 
Reddens laudes Domino. 

" * The boar's head, as I understand, 
Is the rarest dish in all this land, 
Which thus bedeck' d with a gay garland, 
Let us servire Cantico. 
Caput apri defero 
Reddens laudes Domino. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 93 

" ' Our steward hath provided this 
In honour of the King of Bliss ; 
Which on this day to be served is, 
In Regimensi Atrio. 
Caput apri defero 
Reddens laudes Domino.'' " 

" The following," adds the Doctor, " is Hearne's 
minute account of it : (Hist. GuiL Neubrig. vol. Hi. 
p. 743) ; * I will beg leave here,' says the pugnacious 
Oxford antiquary, < to give an exact copy of the 
Christmas Carol upon the Soars Head, (which 
is an ancient dish, and was brought up hy King 
Henry I. with trumpets, before his son, when his 
said son was crowned) as I have it in an old frag- 
ment, (for I usually perserve even fragments of old 
books) of the Christmas Carols printed by Wynkyn 
de Worde, (who as well as Richard Pynson, was 
servant to William Caxton, who was the first that 
printed English books, though not the first printer 
in England, as is commonly said), printing being 
exercised at Oxford in 1468, if not sooner, which 
was several years before he printed anything at 
Westminster, by which it will be perceived how 
much the said carol is altered, as it is sung in some 
places even now, from what it was at first. It is the 
last thing, it seems, of the book (which I never yet 
saw entire), and at the same time I think it proper 
also to add to the printer's conclusion, for this rea- 
son, at least, that such as write about our first 
printers, may have some notice of the date of this 
book, and the exact place where printed, provided 
they cannot be able to meet with it, as I believe they 



^4 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

will find it pretty difficult to do, it being- much laid 
aside, about the time that some of David's Psalms 
came to be used in its stead/ " 



THIS CUSTOM 

Is briefly noticed in Pointer's " Ooconiensis Aca- 
demia," as " that of having- a boar's head, or the 
figure of one in wood, brought up in the hall every 
year on Christmas Day, ushered in very solemnly 
with an old song, in memory of a noble exploit (as 
tradition goes), by a scholar (a Tabardar) of this 
college, in killing a wild boar in Shotover Wood." 
That is, having wandered into the said wood, which 
was not far from Oxford, with a copy of Aristotle in 
his hand (for the Oxonians were of old logicians of 
the orthodox school in which an Alexander the 
Great was bred), and if the latter, as a pupil who sat 
at the foot of Aristotle, conquered a world, no won- 
der our Tabardar, as a disciple, being attacked by a 
wild boar, who came at him with extended jaws, 
intending to make but a mouthful of him, was 
enabled to conquer so rude a beast, which he did by 
thrusting the Aristotle down the boar's throat, 
crying, in the concluding words of the 5th stanza of 
the following song — ' Gr^cum est.' The animal 
of course, fell prostrate at his feet, was carried in 
triumph to the college, and no doubt served up with 
an ' old song,' as Mr. Pointer says, in memory of this 
-noble exploit" The witty Dr. Buckler, however, 
is not satisfied with this brief notice of Mr. Pointer's : 



NUTS TO CRACK. 95 

but says, in his never-to-be-forgotten expose, or 
" Complete Vindication," of The All-Souls Mal- 
lard (of which anon), " I am apt to fear, that it 
is a fixed principle in Mr. Pointer to ridicule every 
ceremony and solemn institution that comes in his 
way, however venerable it may be for its antiquity 
and significance ; " and after quoting" Mr. Pointer's 
words, he adds, with his unrivalled irony, " now, 
notwithstanding this bold hint to the contrary, it 
seemeth to me to be altogether unaccountable and 
incredible, that a polite and learned society should 
be so far depraved in its taste, and so much in love 
with a block-head, as to eat it. But as I have never 
had the honour of dining at a boars head, and there 
are many gentlemen more nearly concerned and 
better informed, as well as better qualified, in every 
respect, to refute this calumny than I am, I shall 
avoid entering into a thorough discussion of this 
subject. I know it is given out by Mr. Pointer's 
enemies, that he hath been employed by some of 
the young seceders from that college, to throw out a 
Story of the Wooden-head, in order to countenance 
the complaints of those gentlemen about short 
commons, and the great deficiency of mutton, beef, 
&c. ; and, indeed, I must say, that nothing could 
have better answered their purpose, in this respect, 
than in proving, according to the insinuation, that 
the chief dish at one of their highest festivals, was 
nothing but a log of Wood bedecked with bays and 
rosemary ; but surely this cannot be credited, after 
the university has been informed by the best autho- 
rity, and in the most public Manner, that a young 
Nobleman, who lately completed his academical 



9& OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

education at that house, was, during his whole resi- 
dence, not only very ivell satisfied but extremely 
delighted with the college commons." 
In the Oxford Sausage is the following 

SONG IN HONOUR OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE 
BOAR'S HEAD, AT QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD. 

Tarn Marti quam Mercurio. 

I sing not of Rome or Grecian mad games, 
The Pythian, Olympic, and such like hard names ; 
Your patience awhile, with submission, I beg, 
I strive but to honour the feast of Coll. Reg. 

Derry down, down, down, derry down. 

No Thracian brawls at our rites e'er prevail, 
We temper our mirth with plain sober mild Ale ; 
The tricks of Old Circe deter us from Wine : 
Though we honour a boar, we won't make ourselves Swine. 
Derry down, &c. 

Great Milo was famous for slaying his Ox, 
Yet he proved but an ass in cleaving of blocks : 
But we had a hero for all things was fit, 
Our Motto displays both his Valour and Wit. 
Derry down, &c. 

Stout Hercules labour'd, and look'd mighty big, 
When he slew the half-starved Erymanthian Pig ; 
But we can relate such a stratagem taken, 
That the stoutest of Boars could not save his own Bacon. 

Derry down, &c. 
So dreadful his bristle-back'd foe did appear, 
You'd have sworn he had got the wrong Pig by the ear, 
But instead of avoiding the mouth of the beast, 
He ramm'd in a volume, and cried — Grcecum est. 
Derry down, &c. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 97 

In this gallant action such fortitude shown is. 
As proves him no coward, nor tender Adonis ; 
No Armour but Logic ; by which we may find, 
That Logic's the bulwark of body and mind. 
Derry down, &c. 

Ye Squires that fear neither hills nor rough rocks, 
And think you're full wise when you out-wit a Fox ; 
Enrich your poor brains, and expose them no more, 
Learn Greek, and seek glory from hunting the Boar. 
Derry down, &c. 



CLEAVING THE BLOCK, 

Is a singular custom that is annually celebrated 
at University College, Oxford, pro bono cook-o ! 
and has a reference, probably, to the exploit in 
which Milo " proved but an ass," as observed in the 
second line of the third verse of the foregoing song, 
or to something more sacred. Every Easter Sunday 
a block of wood is placed at the hall-door, bedecked 
with flowers, where the cook stands with his cleaver. 
This he delivers to each member of the College, as 
he passes out of the Hall, who endeavours, at one 
stroke, to sever the block of wood. Failing to do 
this, he throws down half-a-crown, or some such sum, 
in which he is mulct. This is done by every one in 
succession, should they, as is invariably the case, 
prove themselves asses in " cleaving of blocks." But 
should any one out-Milo Milo, he would be entitled 
to all the previous forfeits : otherwise the whole goes 
to the cook — and the ceremony concludes with a 
scramble for the flowers, by the lookers-on. 

H 



93 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING LITTLE. 

Lord Byron has said, that a man is unfortunate 
whose name will admit of being- punned upon. The 
lament might apply to all peculiarities of person and 
habit. Dr. Joseph Jowett, the late regius professor 
of civil law at Cambridge, though a learned man, an 
able lecturer, one that generously fostered talent in 
rising- young- men, and a dilettante musician of a 
refined and accurate taste, was remarkable for some 
singularities, as smallness of stature, and for garden- 
ing upon a small scale. This gave the late Bishop 
Mansell or Porson (for it has been attributed to 
both, and both were capable of perpetrating it) an 
occasion to throw off 

THE FOLLOWING LATIN EPIGRAM : 

Exiguum hunc hortum Jowettulus iste 
Exiguus, vallo et muriit exiguo : 
Exiguo hoc horto forsan Jowettulus iste 
Exiguus mentem prodidit exiguum. 

IN ENGLISH, AS MUCH AS TO SAY: 

A little garden Utile Jowett had, 
And fenced it with a little palisade : 
Because this garden made a little talk, 
He changed it to a little gravel walk : 
And if you'd know the taste of little Jowett, 
This little garden doth a little show it. 



BISHOPS BLOMFIELD AND MONK, 
Who had the honour to edit his Adversaria, can 
both, it is said, bear witness to the fact, that Porson 



NUTS TO CRACK. 99 

was unlike many pedants who make a display of their 
brilliant parts to surprise rather than enlighten ; he 
was liberal in the extreme, and truly amiable in 
communicating his knowledge to young men of 
talent and industry, and would tell them all they 
wanted to know in a plain and direct manner, with- 
out any attempt to display his superiority. All, 
however, agree that the time for profiting by Por- 
son's learning was inter bibendum, for then, as 
Chaucer says of the Sompnour — 

" When he well dronkin had with wine, 
Then would he speak ne word but Latine." 

More than one distinguished judge of his merits 

PRONOUNCED HIM THE GREATEST SCHOLAR IN 
EUROPE, 

And he never appeared so sore, says one who knew 
him well, as when a Wakefield or a Hermann 
offered to set him right, or hold their tapers to light 
him on his way. Their doing so gave him occasion 
to compare them to four-footed animals, guided only 
by instinct; and in future, he said, he "would take 
care they should not reach what he wrote with their 
paws, though they stood on their hind legs." I may 
here very appropriately repeat the fact, that 

PORSON WAS A GREAT MASTER OF IAMBIC 
MEASURE, 

As he has shown in his preface to the second edition 

of his Hecuba. The German critic, Hermann, 

however, whom he makes to say, in his notes on the 

h 2 



100 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Medea, " We Germans understand quantity better 
than the English,'' accuses him of being more dicta- 
torial than explanatory in his metrical decisions. 
Upon this the professor fired the following epigram 
at the German : — 

Nyi des icrure ^rpcov 3> Tev7wes, o\>x o /*«/, tg 5' 6v, 
ndvres 7r\V 'Eppcu/vog, 6 & ^pfxavvos cr<p6§pCL Teirrcu;/.. 

The Germans in Greek, 
Are sadly to seek ; 
Not five in five score, 
But ninety-five more ; 
All, save only Hermann, 
And Hermann's a German. 



PORSON AND WAKEFIELD 

Had but little regard for each other, and when the 
latter published his Hecuba, Porson said — 

" What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, 
That he should publish her ? " 

At another time, being teased for his opinion of a 
modern Latin poem, his reply was, — " There is a 
great deal in it from Horace, and a great deal from 
Virgil: but nothing Horatian and nothing Virgilian. 

Dr. Parr once asked the professor, "what he 
thought of the origin of evil ? " " I see no good in 
it" was his answer. 

The same pugnacious divine told him one day, 
that " with all his learning, he did not think him 
well versed in metaphysics." " Sir," said Porson, 
" I suppose you mean r,our metaphysics." 

It is not generally known that during the time he 



NUTS TO CRACK. 101 

was employed in deciphering the famed Rosetta 
stone, in the collection of the British Museum, which 
is black, 

HE OBTAINED THE SOUBRIQUET OF JUDGE 
BLACKSTONE. 

And it is here worthy of remark, that it was to 
another celebrated Cantab, Porson's contemporary, 
Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke, the traveller, that we are 
indebted for that relique of antiquity. He happened 
to be in Egypt at the time the negociation for 
the evacuation of that country by the remnant of 
Bonaparte's army was progressing between Lord 
Hutchinson and the French General, Menou. Know- 
ing the French were in possession of the famed 
Rosetta stone, amongst other reliques, Clarke's 
sagacity induced him to point out to Lord Hutchin- 
son the importance of possessing it. The conse- 
quence was, he was named as one of the parties to 
negociate with Menou for the surrender of that and 
their other Egyptian monuments and valuable reliques 
which the sgavans attached to the French army had 
sedulously collected ; and notwithstanding every im- 
pediment and even insult were heaped upon, and 
thrown in Clarke's way, his perseverance was proof 
against it all. Indeed, 

DR. EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE, 

Whose name and writings are now justly celebrated 
throughout the civilised world, was from his very 
childhood (says his biographer, contemporary, and 



[&2 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

friend, the learned Principal of King's College, 
London), an enthusiast in whatever he undertook, 
and always possessed, in a very high degree, the 
power of interesting the minds of others towards any 
objects that occupied his own. This was remarkably 
illustrated by his manufacture of 

A BALLOON, WITH WHICH HE AMUSED THE 
UNIVERSITY, 

In the third year of his residence, when not more 
than eighteen, probably the only instance of a 
member of either university constructing one. It 
" was magnificent in size, and splendid in its de- 
corations, and was constructed and manoeuvred, 
from first to last, entirely by himself. It was the 
contrivance of many anxious thoughts, and the labour 
of many weeks, to bring it to what he wished ; and 
when, at last, it was completed to his satisfaction, 
and had been suspended for some days in the college 
hall, of "which it occupied the whole height, he 
announced a time for its ascension. There was 
nothing at that period very new in balloons, or very 
curious in the species he had adopted ; but by some 
means he had contrived to disseminate, not only 
within his own college, but throughout the whole 
university, a prodigious curiosity respecting the fate 
of this experiment ; and a vast concourse of persons 
assembled, both within and without the college walls; 
and the balloon having been brought to its station, 
the grass-plot within the cloisters of Jesus' College, 
was happily launched by himself, amidst the applause 



NUTS TO CRACK. 103 

of all ranks and degrees of gownsmen, the whole 
scene succeeding to his wish ; nor is it very easy to 
forget the delight which flashed from his eye, and 
the triumphant wave of his cap, when the machine, 
with its little freight (a kitten), having cleared the 
college battlements, was seen floating in full security 
over the towers of the great gate, followed in its 
course by several persons on horseback, who had 
undertaken to recover it ; and all went home delighted 
with an exhibition upon which nobody would have 
ventured, in such a place, but himself. But to gratify 
and amuse others was ever the source of the greatest 
satisfaction to him." This was one of those early 
displays of that spirit of enterprise which was so 
gloriously developed in his subsequent wanderings 
through the dreary regions of the north, over the 
classic shores of mouldering Greece, of Egypt, and 
of Palestine, the scenes of which, and their effects 
upon his vivid imagination and sanguine spirit, he 
has so admirably depicted in his writings. This 
eminent traveller used to say, that the old proverb, 



" WITH TOO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE SOME MUST 
BURN," 

" Was a lie." Use poker, tongs, shovel, and all, — 
only keep them all stirring, was his creed. Few had 
the capacity of keeping them so effectually stirring 
as he had. Nature seemed to have moulded him. 
head and heart, to be in a degree a contradiction to 
the wise saws of experience. 



104 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

THREE BLUE BEANS IN A BLADDER. 

Dr. Bentley said of our celebrated Cambridge 
Professor, Joshua Barnes, that " he knew about 
as much Greek as an Athenian blacksmith,'' but 
he was certainly no ordinary scholar, and few have 
excelled him in his tact at throwing off " trifles light 
as air" in that language, of which his following version 
of three blue beans in a bladder is a sample: — 

Tpeis Kvapoi evi KvaTidi Kvaverjc^i. 

Equal to this is the following spondaic on 

THE THREE UNIVERSITY BEDELS, 

By Kit Smart, who well deserved, though Dr. Johnson 
denied him, a place in his British Poets. He possessed 
great wit and sprightliness of conversation, which 
would readily flow off in extemporaneous verse, says 
Dyer, and the three university bedels all happening 
to be fat men, he thus immortalised them : 

" Pinguia tergeminorum abdomina Bedellorum." 
(Three bedels sound, with paunches fat and round.) 



NO SCHOLAR IN EUROPE UNDERSTOOD THEM 
BETTER. 

It is recorded of another Cambridge Clarke, the 
Rev. John, who was successively head-master of the 
grammar schools of Skipton, Beverley, and Wake- 
field in Yorkshire, and obtained the honourable 
epithet of " The good schoolmaster" — that when he 



NUTS TO CRACK. 105 

presented himself to our great critic, Dr. Richard 
Bentley, at Trinity College, Cambridge, for admission, 
the Doctor proceeded to examine him, as is usual, 
and placed before him a page of the Greek text, with 
the Scholia, for the purpose. " He explained the 
whole," says his memorialist, Dr. Zouch, " with the 
utmost perspicuity, elegance, and ease. Dr. Bentley 
immediately presented him with a valuable edition 
of the Comedies of Aristophanes, telling him, in 
language peculiar to himself, that no scholar in Europe 
understood them better, one person only excepted'* 
Dyer has the following 

BENTLEIAN ANECDOTE 

In his Supplement, but supposes it cannot be charged 
upon the Doctor, " the greatest Greek scholar of his 
age." He is said to have set a scholar a copy of 
Greek verses, by way of imposition, for some offence 
against college discipline. Having completed his 
verses, he brought them to the Doctor, who had not 
proceeded far in examining them before he was struck 
with a passage, which he pronounced bad Greek. 
" Yet, sir," said the scholar, with submission, " I 
thought I had followed good authority," and taking 
a Pindar out of his pocket, he pointed to a similar 
expression. The Doctor was satisfied, but, continuing 
to read on, he soon found another passage, which he 
said was certainly bad Greek. The young man took 
his Pindar out of his pocket again, and showed 
another passage, which he had followed as his autho- 
rity. The Doctor was a little nettled, but he proceeded 



106 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

to the end of the verses, when he observed another pas- 
sage at the close, which he affirmed was not classical. 
" Yet Pindar," rejoined the young- man, " was my 
authority even here," and he pointed out the place 
which he had closely imitated. " Get along, sir," 
exclaimed the Doctor, rising from his chair in a 
passion, " Pindar was very bold, and you are very 
impudent." 



THE GREAT GAUDY OF THE ALL-SOULS' MALLARD. 

This feast is annually celebrated the 14th of Janu- 
ary, by the Society of All-Souls, in piam rnemoriam 
of their founder, the famous Henry Chichele, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. It is a custom at All-Souls' 
College (says Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Aca- 
demia), kept up on " their mallard-night every 
year, in remembrance of a huge mallard or drake, 
found (as tradition goes) imprisoned in a gutter or 
drain under ground, and grown to a vast bigness, at 
the digging for the foundation of the college." This 
mallard had grown to a huge size, and was, it appears, 
of a great age ; and to account for the longevity, he 
cites the Ornithology of Willughby, who observes, 
" that he was assured by a friend of his, a person of 
very good credit, that his father kept a goose known 
to be sixty years of age, and as yet sound and lusty, 
and like enough to have lived many years longer, 
had he not been forced to kill her, for her mischiev- 
ousness, worrying and destroying the young geese 
and goslings." " And my Lord Bacon," he adds, " in 



NUTS TO CRACK. 107 

his Natural History, says, the goose may pass among 
the long-livers, though his food be commonly grass 
and such kind of nourishment, especially the wild 
goose ; wherefore this proverb grew among the 
Germans, Magis sene.v quam Anser nivalis — Older 
than a wild-goose" He might also have instanced 
the English proverb, "As tough as a Michaelmas 
goose.'' " If a goose be such a long-lived bird," 
observes Mr. P., M why not a cluck or a drake, since 
I reckon they may be both ranked in the same class, 
though of a different species, as to their size, as a 
rat and a mouse ? And if so, this may help to give 
credit to our All-Souls' mallard. However, this is 
certain, this mallard is the accidental occasion of a 
great gaudy once a-year, and great mirth, though the 
commemoration of their founder is the chief occasion ; 
for on this occasion is always sung/' as extant in the 
Oxford Sausage, the following " merry old song :" — 

THE ALL-SOULS' MALLARD. 

Griffix, bustard, turkey, capon. 

Let our hungry mortals gape on, 

And on their bones their stomach fall hard. 

But All-Souls' men have their mallard. 

Oh ! by the blood of King Edward, 
Oh ! by the blood of King -Edward, 
It was a swapping, swapping, mallard. 

The Romans once admired a gander 
More than they did their chief commander, 
Because he saved, if some don't fool us. 
The place that's called from the Head of Tolus. 
Oh ! by the blood, Bee. 



108 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

The poets feign Jove turned a swan. 
But let them prove it if they can ; 
As for our proof, 'tis not at all hard, 
For it was a swapping, swapping mallard. 
Oh! for the blood. &c. 

Swapping he was from bill to eye, 
Swapping he was from wing to thigh ; 
Swapping — his age and corporation 
Out-swapped all the winged creation. 
Oh ! for the blood, &c. 

Therefore let us sing and dance a galliard, 

To the remembrance of the mallard ; 

And as the mallard dives in a pool, 

Let us dabble, dive, and duck in a bowl. 

Oh ! by the blood of King Edward, 
Oh ! by the blood of King Edward. 
It was a swapping, swapping mallard. 

But whoever would possess themselves of the true 
history of tike swapping mallard of All- Souls., must 
read the " Complete Vindication of the Mallard 
of All- Souls" published in 1751. by Dr. Buckler. 
sub-warden, " a most incontrovertible proof of his 
wit." who for that and other, his effusions, was 
usually styled, by way of eminence, says Chalmers, 
in his History of Oxford, i; The Buckler of the 
Mallardians/' His Fk . it is justly observed, 

one of the finest pieces of irony in our langua_ 
Of course, he is highly indignant at the " injurious 
jestions of Mr. Pointer (contained in the fore- 
going quotations), who insinuates, that the huge 
1 was no better than a goose-a-gander, "magis 

r" Sec. ; and after citing the very words of Mr. P., 
he breaks out, "Thus the mallard of AH- \ 



NUTS TO CRACK. 109 

whose remembrance has, for these three centuries, 
been held in the highest veneration, is, by this 
forged hypothesis, degraded into a goose, or, at 
least, ranked in the same class with that ridiculous 
animal, and the whole story on which the rites and 
ceremonies of the mallard depends, is represented as 
merely traditional ; more than a hint is given of the 
mischievousness of the bird, whatever he be ; and 
all is founded on a pretended longevity, in support of 
which fiction the great names of Lord Bacon and 
Mr. Wilhighby are called in, to make the vilifying 
insinuation pass the more plausibly upon the world." 
" We live in an age (he adds), when the most serious 
subjects are treated with an air of ridicule ; I shall 
therefore set this important affair in its true light," 
and produce authorities " sufficient to convince the 
most obstinate incredulity ; and first, I shall beg leave 
to transcribe a passage from Thomas Walsingham 
(see Nicholson s Historical Library), a monk of St. 
Alban's, and Regius Professor of History in that 
monastery, about the year 1440. This writer is well 
known among the historians for his Historia Brevis, 
written in Latin, and published both by Camden and 
Archbishop Parker. But the tract I am quoting is 
in English, and entitled, Of Wonderful and 
Surprising Eventys, and, as far as I can find, has 
never yet been printed. The eighth chapter of his 
fifth book begins thus : — 

" ' Ryghte well worthie of Note is thilke famous 
Tale of the All-Soulen Mallarde, the whiche, because 
it bin acted in our Daies, and of a suretye vouched 
into me, I will in fewe Wordys relate. 



110 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

" * Whereas Henry e Ckicele, the late renowned Arch- 
Rishope of Canterbury e, had minded to founden a 
Collidge in Oxenforde for the hele of his Soule and 
the Soules of all those who peryshed in the Warres 
in Fraunce, fighteing valiantlye under our most 
gracious Henrije the fifthe, moche was he dis- 
traughten concerning the Place he myghte choose 
for thilke Purpose. Him thynketh some whylest 
how he myghte place it withouten the eastern Parte 
of the Citie, both for the Pleasauntnesse of the 
Meadowes and the clere Streamys therebye run- 
ninge. Agen him thynketh odir whylest howe he 
mote builden it on the Northe Side for the heleful 
Ayre there coming from the fieldis. Now while 
he doubteth thereon he dreamt, and behold there 
appearyth unto him one of righte godelye Person- 
age, saying and adviseing him as howe he myghte 
placen his Collidge in the Highe Strete of the 
Citie, nere unto the Chirche of our blessyd Ladie 
the Virgine, and in Witnesse that it was sowthe 
and no vain and deceitful Phantasie, wolled him to 
lave the first Stone of the foundation at the corner 
which turnyth towards the Catty s-strete> where in 
delvinge he myghte of a Suretye finde a schwop- 
pinge Mallarde imprison'd in the Sinke or Sewere, 
wele yfattened and almost ybosten. Sure Token of 
the Thrivaunce of his future Collidge. 

" ' Moche doubteth he when he awoke on the nature 
of this Vision, whether he mote give hede thereto 
or not. Then advisyth he thereon with monie 
Docters and learned Clerkys, all sayd howe he 
oughte to maken Trial upon it. Then comyth he to 



NUTS TO CRACK. Ill 

Oxenforde, and on a Daye fix'd, after Masse seyde, 
proceedeth he in solemne wyse, with Spades and 
Pickaxes for the nonce provided, to the Place afore 
spoken of. But long they had not digged ere they 
herde, as it myghte seme, within the warn of the 
Erthe, horrid Strugglinges and Flutteringes, and 
anon violent Quaakinges of the distressyd Mallarde. 
Then Chiccle lyfteth up his hondes and seyth Bene- 
dicite, &c. &c. Nowe when they broughte him 
forthe behold the Size of his Bodie was as that of 
a Bustarde or an Ostriche, and moche wonder was 
thereat, for the lyke had not been seene in this 
Londe, ne in anie odir.' 

" Here," says the Doctor, " we have the matter 
of fact proved from an authentic record, wherein 
there is not one word said of the longevity of the 
mallard, upon a supposition of which Mr. Pointer 
has founded his whole libel. The mallard, 'tis true, 
has grown to a great size. But what then ? Will 
not the richness and plenty of the diet he wallowed 
in very well account for this, without supposing any 
great number of years of imprisonment ? The words 
of the historian, I am sure, rather discourage any 
such supposition. Sure token, says he, of the thriv- 
ance of his future college ! which seems to me to 
intimate the great progress the mallard had made 
in fattening, in a short space of time. But be this 
as it will, there is not the least hint of a goose in 
the case. No: the impartial Walsingham had far 
higher notions of the mallard, and could form no 
comparison of him, without borrowing his idea from 
some of the most noble birds, the bustard and the 



112 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

ostridge" Turning to our author's comment on 
the last passage of Mr. Pointer, he adds, " However, 
this is certain, this mallard is the accidental occasion 
of a great gaudy once a year, and great mirth ; for 
on this occasion is always sung a merry old song." — 
" Rem tarn seriam — tarn negligenter," exclaims the 
Doctor ; " Would any one but this author have 
represented so august a ceremony as the Celebration 
of the Mallard by those vulgar circumstances of 
eating and drinking, and singing a merry old song ? 
Doth he not know that the greatest states, even 
those of Rome and Carthage, had their infant found- 
ations distinguished by incidents very much resem- 
bling those of the mallard, and that the commemo- 
ration of them was celebrated with hymns and 
processions, and made a part of their religious 
observances? Let me refresh his memory with a 
circumstance or two relating to the head of Tolus 
(will serve to elucidate the fourth line of the second 
verse of the merry old song) which was discovered 
at the foundation of the Capitol. The Romans held 
the remembrance of it in the greatest veneration, as 
will appear from the following quotation from Arno- 
bius, in a fragment preserved by Lipsius : — i Quo 
die (says he, speaking of the annual celebrity) con- 
gregati sacerdotes, et eorum ministri, totum Capito- 
linumcollem circumibant, cantilenam quandam sacram 
de Toli cujusdam capite, dum molirentur fundamenta 
invento, recitantes deinde ad ccenam vere pontificiam 
se recipientes,' &c. Part of this merry old song 
(as Mr. P. wou'd call it) is preserved by Vossius, in 
his book De Sacris Cantilenis Veterum Romanorum. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 113 

The chorus of it shows so much the simplicity of the 
ancient Roman 'poetry that I cannot forbear trans- 
cribing* it for the benefit of my reader, as the book is 
too scarce to be in every one's hand. It runs thus : 

Toli caput venerandwn ! 
Magnum caput et mirandum ! 
Toli caput resonamus. 

I make no doubt but that every true critick will be 
highly pleased with it. For my own part, it gives 
me a particular pleasure to reflect on the resemblance 
there is between this precious relique of antiquity, 
and the chorus of the Mallard. 

Oh, by the blood of King Edward, 

It was a swapping, swapping Mallard ! 

The greatness of the subject, you see, is the Thing 
celebrated in both, and the manner of doing it is as 
nearly equal as the different geniuses of the two 
languages will permit. Let me hope, therefore, that 
Mr. P., when he exercises his thoughts again on 
this subject, will learn to think more highly of the 
mallard, than of a common gaudy, ovmerry-making. 
For it will not be just to suppose that the gentlemen 
of All Souls can have less regard for the memory of 
so noble a bird, found all alive, than the Romans 
had for the dead skull of the Lord knows whom" 



ANOTHER OXFORD DREAM PRECEDED THE 
FOUNDATION OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE. 

Dr. Plott relates, in his History of Oxfordshire, 
that the founder of St. John's College, Oxford, Sir 



114 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 

Thomas White, alderman and merchant tailor of 
London, originally designed the establishment of his 
college at his birth-place, Reading, in Berkshire. 
But being warned in a dream, that he should build a 
college for the education of youth, in religion and 
learning, near a place where he should find two elms 
growing out of the same root, he first proceeded to 
Cambridge, and finding no such tree, he repaired to 
Oxford, where he discovered one, which answered 
the description in his dream, near St. Bernard's 
College. Elated with joy, he dismounted from his 
horse, and, on his knees, returned thanks for the 
fortunate issue of his pious search. Dr. Joseph 
Warton seems to throw a doubt upon Dr. Plott's 
narration, observing, that he was fond of the marvel- 
lous. The college was founded in the middle of the 
sixteenth century, and Doctor Plott says, that the 
tree was in a flourishing state in his day, 1677, when 
Dr. Leving was president of St. John's College. 
Mr, Pointer observes, in his Oxoniensis Academic 
" The triple trees that occasioned the foundation of 
the college, &c. did stand between the library and 
the garden. One of them died in 1626/' 

The following letter, addressed to the Society by 
Sir Thomas, the founder, a fortnight before his death, 
the 11th of February, 1566, is a relic worth print- 
ing, though it does '* savour of death's heads." 

" Mr. President, with the Fellows and Schollers, 
" I have mee recommended unto you even from 
the bottome of my hearte, desyringe the Holye 
Ghoste may be amonge you untill the end of the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 115 

worlde, and desyringe Almightie God, that everie 
one of you may love one another as brethren ; and I 
shall desyre you all to applye to your learninge, and 
so doinge, God shall give you his blessinge bothe in 
this worlde and the worlde to come. And, further- 
more, if anye variance or strife doe arise amonge you, 
I shall desyre you, for God's love, to pacifye it as 
much as you may ; and that doinge, I put no doubt 
but God shall blesse everye one of you. And this 
shall be the last letter that ever I shall sende unto 
you ; and therefore I shall desyre everye one of you, 
to take a copy of yt for my sake. No more to you 
at this tyme ; but the Lord have you in his keeping 
untill the end of the worlde. Written the 27th day 
of January, 1566. I desyre you all to pray to God 
for mee, that I may ende my life with patience, and 
that he may take mee to his mercye. 
" By mee, 

" Sir Thomas White, 

" Knighte, Alderman of London, and 
" Founder of St. John's College, in Oxford." 



A POINT OF PRECEDENCE SETTLED. 

A dispute once arose between the Doctors of Law 
and Medicine, in Cambridge, as to which had the 
right of precedence. " Does the thief or hangman 
take precedence at executions ? " asked the Chan- 
cellor, on reference to his judgment. " The former." 
answered a wag. " Then let the Doctors of Law 
have precedence," said the Chancellor. 
i2 



116 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



COMPLIMENTS TO THE LEARNED OF BOTH 
UNIVERSITIES. 

" The names which learned men bear for any 
length of time," says Dr. Parr, " are generally well 
founded." Dr. Chilling worth, for his able and 
convincing* writing's in support of the Protestant 
Church, was styled 

" MALLEUS PAPISTARUM." 

Dr. Sutherland, the friend and literary associate 
of Dr. Mead, and others, obtained the soubriquet of 

" THE WALKING DICTIONARY." 

John Duns, better known as the celebrated Duns 
Scotus, who was bred at Merton College, Oxford., 
and is said to have been buried alive, was called 

DOCTOR SUBTILIS : 

Another Mertonian, named Occam, his successor 
and opponent, was named 

DOCTOR INVINCIBILIS : 

A third was the famous Sir Henry Savile, who had 
the title of 

PROFOUND 

Bestowed upon him : and a fourth of the Society 
of Merton College, was the celebrated Reformer, 
John WickiifFe, who was called 

DOCTOR EVANGELICUS. 
Wood says, that Dr. John Reynolds, President of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 117 

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, died in 1607, "one 
of so prodigious a memory, that he might have been 
called 

THE WALKING LIBRARY;" 

To " see whom," he adds, " was to command virtue 
itself." If Duns Scotus was justly called " the 
most subtle doctor," says Parr, Roger Bacon, 

" THE wonderful;' 

Bonaventure " the Seraphim," Aquinas the " Uni- 
versal and Evangelical," surely Hooker has with 
equal, if not superior justice, obtained the name of 

" THE JUDICIOUS." 

Bishop Louth, in his preface to his English Gram- 
mar, has bestowed the highest praise upon the purity 
of Hooker's style. Bishop Warburton, in his book 
on the Alliance between Church and State, often 
quotes him, and calls him, u the excellent, the 
admirable, the best good man of our order." 



JOHN LELAND, 

Senior, says Wood, who in the reigns of Henry V. 
and VI. taught and read in Peckwaters Ynne, while 
it flourished with grammarians, " was one so well 
seen in verse and prose, and all sorts of humanity, 
that he went beyond the learnedest of his age, and 
was so noted a grammarian, that this verse was 
made upon him : — 

' Ut rosa flos florum sic Leland grammaticorum ; ' 



118 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Which," he adds, " with some alteration, was fastened 
upon John Leland, junior, by Richard Croke, of 
Cambridge, at what time the said Leland became a 
Protestant, and thereupon," observes Wood (as if it 
were a necessary consequence), " fell mad :" 

1 Ut rosa flos florum sic Leland flos fatuorum.' 

Which being* replied to by Leland (In Encom. Erudi- 
torum in Anglia, &c. per Jo. Leland's edit. Lond. 
1589), was answered by a friend of Croke's in verse 
also. And here by the way I must let the reader know 
that it was the fashion of that age (temp. Hen. VIII.) 
to buffoon, or wit it after that fashion, not only by the 
younger sort of students, but by bishops and grave 
doctors. The learned Walter Haddon, Master of 
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and afterwards President 
of Magdalen College, Oxford, in an epistle that he 
wrote to Dr. Cox, Almoner to Edward IV. (after- 
wards Bishop of Ely) " doth give him great com- 
mendations of his actions and employments, and 
further addeth (in his Lucubrations) that when he 
was at leisure to recreate his mind, he would, rather 
than be idle, * Scevolae et Laelii more — aut velita- 
tionem illam Croci cum Lelando perridiculam, vel 
reliquas Oxonienses nugas (ita enim profecto sunt,' 
saith he), ' evolvere voluerit, &c.' Dr. Tresham, also, 
who was many years Commissary or Vice-Chancellor 
of the University, is said by (Humfredus in Vita 
Juelli) < ludere in re seria, &c.'" When Queen 
Elizabeth was asked her opinion of the scholarship 
of the two great cotemporaries, the learned Buchanan 



NUTS TO CRACK. 119 

and Dr. Walter Haddon, the latter accounted the 
best writer of Latin of his age, she dexterously 
avoided the imputation of partiality by replying: 
" JBuchannum omnibus antepono, Haddonum nemini 
postpono." 



LORD MOUNTJOY 

Was the friend and cotemporary of Erasmus, at 
Queen's College, Cambridge, and was so highly 
esteemed by that great man, that he called him, 
" Inter doctos nobilissimus 3 inter nobiles doctissimus, 
inter utrosque optimusP His noble friend once 
entreated him to 

ATTACK THE ERRORS OF LUTHER. 

" My Lord," replied the sage, " nothing is more 
easy than to say Luther is mistaken : nothing more 
difficult than to prove him so." 

VIR EGREGIE DOCTUS, 

Was the soubriquet conferred upon the celebrated 
Etonian, Cantab, Reformer, Provost of King's Col- 
lege, and Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Edward Fox, by 
the learned Bishop Godwin. Another Etonian and 
Cantab, Dr. Aldrich, Bishop of Carlisle, received 
from Erasmus, when young, the equally just and 
elegant compliment of 

M BLANDJE ELOQUENTLY JUVENEM." 



120 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



A POINT OF ETIQUETTE, 

Many humorous stories are told of the absurd 
height to which the observance of etiquette has been 
carried at both Oxford and Cambridge. In my time, 
you might meet a good fellow at a wine party, crack 
your joke with him, hob-nob, &c, but, unless intro- 
duced, you would have been stared at with the most 
vacant wonderment if you attempted to recognise 
him next day. It is told of men of both universities, 
that a scholar walking on the banks of the Isis, or 
Cam, fell into the river, and was in the act of 
drowning, when another son of Alma-Mater came 
up, and observing his perilous situation, exclaimed, 
" What a pity it is I have not the honour of knowing 
the gentleman, that I might save him ! " One version 
of the story runs, that the said scholars met by acci- 
dent on the banks of the Nile or Ganges, I forget 
which, when the catastrophe took place ; we may, 
therefore, very easily imagine the presence of either 
a crocodile or an alligator to complete the group. 

Wood, in his Annals of Oxford, has the following 
anecdote of 

THE VALUE OF A SYLLABLE. 

" The masters of olden time at Athens, and 
afterwards at Oxford, were called Sophi, and the 
scholars Sophistce ; but the masters taking it in scorn 
that the scholars should have a larger name than 
they, called themselves Philosophic — that is, lovers 
of science/and so got the advantage of the scholars 



> 









'J 



■ 






m 




NUTS TO CRACK. 121 

by one syllable." Every body has heard of Foote's 
celebrated motto for a tailor-friend of his, about to 
sport his coat of arms, — " List, list, O list /" But 
every body has not heard, probably, though it is 
noticed in his memoir, extant in Nichols's Literary 
Anecdotes, that the learned Cambridge divine and 
antiquary, Dr. Cocks Macro, having applied to a 
Cambridge acquaintance for an appropriate motto to 
his coat of arms, was pithily answered with 

14 COCKS MAY CROW." 

Every Cantab remembers and regrets the early 
death of the accomplished scholar, Charles Skinner 
Matthews, M.A., late Fellow of Downing College, 
who was " the familiar" of the present Sir J. C. 
Hobhouse, and of the late Lord Byron. He was not 
more accomplished than facetious, nor, according to 
one of Lord Byron's letters, more facetious than 
" beloved." Speaking of his university freaks, his 
lordship says, " when Sir Henry Smith was expelled 
from Cambridge, for a row with a tradesman named 
" Hiron," Matthews solaced himself with shouting 
under Hiron's window every evening — 

" Ah me ! what perils do environ 

The man who meddles with hot Hiron ! " 

He was also of that 

BAND OF PROFANE SCOFFERS 

who, under the auspices of , used to rouse 

Lort Mansel (late Bishop of Bristol) from his 
slumbers in the Lodge of Trinity (College) ; and 



122 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

when he appeared at the window, foaming with 
wrath, and crying* out, " I know you, gentlemen ; I 
know you!" were wont to reply, "We beseech 
thee to hear us, good Lort ! — Good Lort deliver us !" 
{Lort was his Christian name). And his lordship 
might have added, the pun was the more poignant, 
as the Bishop was either a Welshman himself, or 
had a Welsh sponsor, in the person of the late Greek 
Professor, Dr. Lort. Punning upon sacred subjects, 
however, is decidedly in bad taste ; yet, in the reign 
of the Stuarts, neither king nor nobles were above it. 
Our illustrious Cantab, Bacon, writing to Prince, 
afterwards Charles the First, in the midst of his dis- 
astrous poverty, says, he hopes, " as the father was 
his Creator, the son will be his Redeemer." Yet 
this great man 

DID NOT THE LESS REVERENCE RELIGION, 

But said, towards the close of his chequered life, that 
" a little smattering in philosophy would lead a man 
to Atheism, but a thorough insight into it will lead 
a man back to a First Cause ; and that the first 
principle of religion is right reason ; and seriously 
professed, all his studies and inquisitions, he durst 
not die with any other thoughts than those religion 
taught, as it is professed among the Christians/' 
These incidents remind me that 

THE MEMORY OF JEMMY GORDON, 

" Who, to save from rustication, 
Crammed the dunce with declamation," 

Is now fast falling into forgetfulness, though there 
was a time when he was hailed by Granta's choicest 



NUTS TO CRACK. 123 

spirits, as one who never failed to u set the table in 
a roar." Poor Jemmy ! I shall never forget the 
manner in which he, by one of those straightforward, 
not-to-be-mistaken flashes of wit, silenced a brow- 
beating Radical Huntingdon attorney, at a Reform- 
meeting in Cambridge market-place. Jemmy was a 
native of Cambridge, and was the son of a former 
chapel- clerk of Trinity College, who gave him an 
excellent classical education, and had him articled 
to an eminent solicitor, with fine talents and good 
prospects. But though Jemmy was " a cunning man 
with a hard head," such as his profession required, he 
had a soft heart, — fell in love with a pretty girl. 
That pretty girl, it is said, returned his passion, then 
proved faithless, and finally coquetted and ran off 
with a " gay deceiver," a fellow-commoner of Trinity 
College, — optically dazzled, no doubt, with the purple 
robe and silver lace, for Jemmy was a fine, sensible- 
looking man. Poor Jemmy ! he was too good for the 
faithless hussy ; he took it to heart, as they say, and, 
unfortunately, took to drinking at the same time. 
He soon became too unsettled, both in mind and 
habits, to follow up his profession with advantage, 
and he became a bon-vivant, a professed wit, with a 
natural turn for facete, and the cram-man of the 
more idle sons of Granta, who delighted in his 
society in those days when his wits were unclouded, 
nor did the more distinguished members of the 
university then disdain to hail him to their boards. 
For many years Jemmy lived to know and prove 
that "learning is most excellent;" and having a 
good classical turn, he lived by writing Themes and 



124 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Declarations for non-reading* Cantabs, for each of 
which Jemmy expected the physician's mite, and, 
like them, might be said to thrive by the Guinea 
Trade. It is, no doubt, true, that some of his pro- 
ductions had college prizes awarded to them, and 
that, on one occasion, being recommended to apply 
for the medal, he indignantly answered, " It is no 
credit to be first in an ass-race ! " Notwithstanding, 
Jemmy's in-goings never equalled his out-goings, 
and many a parley had Jemmy with his empty purse. 
It was no uncommon thing for him to pass his vaca- 
tions in quod — videlicet gaol — for debts his creditors 
were well aware he could not pay ; but they well 
knew also that his friends, the students, would be 
sure to pay him out on their return to college. 
These circumstances give occasion for the publication 
of the now scarce caricatures of him, entitled, " Term- 
time," and u Non-term.'' In the first he is repre- 
sented spouting to one of his togaed customers, in 
the latter he appears cogitating in " durance vile." 
Besides these, numerous portraits of Jemmy have 
been put forth, for the correctness of most of which 
we, who have " held our sides at his fair words," 
can vouch. A full-length is extant in Hone's Every- 
Day Book, in the Gradus ad Catabrigiam is a second ; 
and we doubt not but our friend Mason, of Church- 
Passage, Cambridge, could furnish a collector with 
several. Poor Jemmy! he has now been dead 
several years. His latter days were melancholy 
indeed. To the last, however, Jemmy continued 
to sport those distinctive marks of a man of ton, a 
spying-glass and an opera-hat, which so well became 



NUTS TO CRACK. 125 

him. Latterly he became troublesome to his best 
friends, not only levying- contributions at will, but 
by saying- hard things to them, sparing- neither heads 
of colleg-e, tutors, fellows, students, or others whose 
names were familiar to him. On one occasion, obli- 
vious with too much devotion to Sir John, as was 
latterly his wont, his abuse caused him to be com- 
mitted to the tread -mill — sic transit — and after his 
term of exercise had expired, meeting a Cantab in 
the street whose beauty was even less remarkable 
than his wit, he addressed our recreant with, " Well, 
Jemmy, how do you like the tread-mill ? " "I don't 

like your ugly face," was the response. 

Jemmy's recorded witticisms were at one time as 
numberless as the stars, and in the mouth of every 
son of Granta, bachelor or big-wig ; now some only 
are remembered. He one day met Sir John Mort- 
lock in the streets of Granta, soon after he had been 
knighted ; making a dead pause, and looking Sir John 
full in the face, Jemmy improvised — 

11 The king, by merely laying sword on, 
Could make a knight of Jemmy Gordon." 

At another time, petitioning a certain college digni- 
tary for a few shillings to recover his clothes, pledged 
to appease his thirst, he said, on receiving the 
amount, " Now, I know that my redeemer liveth." 
Jemmy, in his glorious days, had been a good 
deal patronised by the late Master of Trinity College, 
Bishop Mansel, like himself a wit of the first water. 
Jemmy one day called upon the bishop, during the 
time he filled the office of Vice-Chancellor, to beg 



126 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

half-a-crown. " I will give you as much," said the 
Bishop, " if you can bring- me a greater rogue than 
yourself.'' Jemmy made his bow and departed, 
content with the condition, and had scarcely half 
crossed the great court of Trinity, when he espied 
the late Mr. B., then one of the Esquire Bedels of 
the University, scarcely less eccentric than himself. 
Jemmy coolly told him that the Vice-Chancellor 
wanted to see him. Into the Lodge went our Bedel, 
followed close by Jemmy. " Here he is," said 
Jemmy, as they entered the Bishop's presence, 
arcades arnbo, at the same instant. "Who? "in- 
quired the Bishop. " You told me, my Lord," said 
Jemmy, " to bring you a greater rogue than myself, 
and you would give me half-a-crown, and here he is." 
The Bishop enjoyed the joke, and gave him the 
money. A somewhat 

SIMILAR STORY IS TOLD OF AN OXFORD WAG, 

In Addison's Anecdotes, stating, that about the 
beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was 
more the fashion to drink ale at Oxford than at 
present, a humorous fellow of merry memory 
established an ale-house near the pound, and wrote 
over his door, " Ale sold by the pound ! " As his 
ale was as good as his jokes, the Oxonians resorted 
to his house in great numbers, and sometimes stayed 
there beyond the college hours. This was made a 
matter of complaint to the Vice-Chancellor, who 
was desired to take away his licence by one of the 
Proctors. Boniface was summoned to attend ac- 
cordingly, and when he came into the Vice-Chancel- 



NUTS TO CRACK. 127 

lor's presence, he began hawking and spitting about 
the room. This the Vice-Chancellor observed, and 
asked what he meant by it ? " Please your worship," 
said he, " I came here on purpose to clear myself/' 
The Vice-Chancellor imagining that he actually 
weighed his ale, said, " They tell me you sell ale by 
the pound ; is that true ? " " No, an' please your 
worship." " How do you, then ? " " Very well, 
I thank you, sir," said the wag, " how do you do ? " 
The Vice-Chancellor laughed and said, " Get away 
for a rogue ; I'll say no more to you." The fellow 
went out, but in crossing the quod met the proctor 
who had laid the information against him. " Sir," 
said he, addressing the Proctor, " the Vice-Chancel- 
lor wants to speak with you," and they went to the 
Vice-Chancellor's together. " Here he is, sir," said 
Boniface, as they entered the presence. " Who ? " 
inquired the Vice. " Why, sir," he rejoined, " you 
sent me for a rogue, and I have brought you the 
greatest that I know of." The result was, says the 
author of Terrce-Filius (who gives a somewhat 
different version of the anecdote), that Boniface paid 
dear for his jokes : being not only deprived of his 
licence, but committed to prison. 



CAMBRIDGE FROLICS. 



I recollect once being invited, with another Cantab, 
to bitch (as they say) with a scholar of Bene't Coll. 
and arrived there at the hour named to find the door 
sported and our host out. We resolved, however, 



128 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

not to be floored by a quiz, and having gained ad- 
mission to his rooms per the window, we put a bold 
face upon matters, went straight to the buttery, and 
ordered "coffee and muffins for two" in his name. 
They came of course ; and having feasted to our 
heart's content, we finished our revenge by hunting 
up all the tallow we could lay hands on, which we 
cut up to increase the number, and therewith illu- 
minated his rooms and beat a retreat as quick as 
possible. The College was soon in an uproar to 
learn the cause for such a display, and we had the 
pleasure of witnessing our wag's chagrin thereat 
from a nook in the court. This anecdote reminds 
me of one told of himself and the late learned physi- 
cian, Dr. Battie, by Dr. Morell. They were con- 
temporary at Eton, and afterwards went to King's 
College, Cambridge, together. Dr. Battie's mother 
was his jackall wherever he went, and, says Dr. 
Morell, she kindly recommended me and other 
scholars to a chandler at As. 6d. per dozen. But the 
candles proved dear even at that rate, and we resolved 
to vent our disappointment upon her son. We, 
accordingly, got access to Battie's room, locked him 
out, and all the candles we could find in his box we 
lighted and stuck up round the room ! and, whilst I 
thrummed on the spinnet, the rest danced round me 
in their shirts. Upon Battie's coming, and finding 
what we were at, he "fell to storming and swear- 
ing," says the Doctor, " till the old Vice-Provost, 
Dr. Willymott, called out from above, ■ Who is 

SWEARING LIKE A COMMON SOLDIER?' 



NUTS TO CRACK. 129 

1 It is I,' quoth Battie. * Visit me/ quoth the Vice- 
Provost. Which, indeed, we were all obliged to do 
the next morning*, with a distich, according to cus- 
tom. Mine naturally turned upon, ' So fiddled 
Orpheus, and so danced the brutes ;' which having 
explained to the Vice-Pro., he punished me and 
Sleech with a few lines from the Epsilon of Homer, 
and Battie with the whole third book of Milton, to 
get, as we say, by heart." Another College scene, 
in which Battie played a part, when a scholar at 
King's, is the following : — 

CASE OF BLACK RASH, 

Given on the authority of his old college chum, 
Ralph Thicknesse, who, like himself, became a 
Fellow. There was then at King's College, says 
Ralph, a very good-tempered six-feet-high Parson, 
of the name of Harry LofFt, who was one of the 
College chanters, and the constant butt of all both 
at commons and in the parlour. Harry, says Ralph, 
dreaded so much the sight of a gun or a pair 
of pistols, that such of his friends as did not desire 
too much of his company kept fire-arms to keep 
him at arms length. Ralph was encouraged, by 
some of the Fellows, he says (juniors of course), to 
make a serious joke out of Harry's foible, and one 
day discharged a gun, loaded with powder, at our 
six-feet -high Parson, as he was striding his way to 
prayers. The powder was coarse and damp and did 
not all burn, so that a portion of it lodged in Harry's 
face. The fright and a little inflammation put the 
poor chanter to bed, says Ralph. But he was not 

K 



130 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

the only frightened party, for we were all much 
alarmed lest the report should reach the Vice- 
Chancellor's ears, and the good-tempered Hal was 
prevailed with to be only ill. Battie and another, 
who were not of the shooting party (the only two 
fellow-students in physic), were called to Hal's 
assistance. They were not told the real state of the 
case, and finding* his pulse high, his spirits low, 
and his face inflamed and sprinkled with red spots, 
after a serious consultation, they prescribed. On 
retiring from the sick man's room, they were forth- 
with examined on the state of the case by the impa- 
tient plotters of the wicked deed, to whose amuse- 
ment both the disciples of Galen pronounced Hal's 
case to be the black rash ! This, adds Ralph, was 
a never-to-be-forgotten roast for Battie and Banks 
in Cambridge ; and if we may add to this, that 
Battie, in after life, sent his wife to Bath for a 
dropsy, where she was shortly tapped of a fine boy, 
it may give us a little insight into the practice of 
physic, and induce us to say with the poet — 

11 Better to search in fields for wealth unbought, 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught." 

The same Ralph relates a humorous anecdote of 
THE FATE OF THE DOCTOR'S OLD GRIZZLE WIG. 

The Doctor, says Ralph, was as good a punch as 
he was a physician, and after he settled at Uxbridge, 
in the latter character, where he first opened his 
medical budget, with the proceeds of his Fellowship 
at King's College alone to depend on, Ralph took 
advantage of a stay in London to ride over to see his 



NUTS TO CRACK. 131 

old college chum and fellow-punster, and reached his 
domus in the Doctor's absence. Ralph's wig was 
the worse for a shower of rain he had rode through, 
and, taking it off, desired the Doctor's man, William, 
to bring him his master's old grizzle to put on, 
whilst he dried and put a dust of powder into his. 
But ere this could be accomplished, the Doctor 
returned, as fine as may be, in his best tye, kept 
especially for visiting his patients in. As soon as 
mutual greetings had passed, " Why, zounds, Ralph," 
exclaimed the Doctor, " what a cursed wig you have 
got on ! " " True," said Ralph, taking it off as he 
spoke, " it is a bad one, and if you will, as I have 
another with me, I will toss it into the fire." " By 
all means," said the Doctor, " for, in truth, it is a 
very caxon" and into the Jlre went the fry. The 
Doctor now began to skin his legs, and calling his 
man, William, " Here," said he, taking off his tye, 
11 bring me my old wig." " Mr. Thicknesse has got 
it," said William. " And where is it, Ralph," said 
the Doctor, turning upon his visiter. " Burnt, as 
you desired ; and this illustrates the spirit of all 
mankind," said Ralph ; " we can see the shabby wig. 
and feel the pitiful tricks of our friends, overlooking 
the disorder of our own wardrobes. As Horace says, 
' Nil habeo quod agam ;' — ' mind every body's busi- 
ness but your own.' " Talking of gunpowder reminds 
me of 

TWO OTHER SHOOTING ANECDOTES. 

All who know anything of either Oxford or 
Cambridge scholars, know well enough, that their 
k2 



132 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

manners are not only well preserved at all seasons, 
but that when they are in a humour for sporting, it 
is of very little consequence whether other folk pre- 
serve their manners or not. When the late eccentric 
Joshua Waterhouse, B. D. (who was so barbarously 
murdered a few years since by Joshua Slade, in 
Huntingdonshire), was a student of Catherine Hall, 
Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow, he was a 
remarkably strong young man, some six feet high, 
and not easily frightened. He one day went out 
to shoot with another man of his college, and his 
favourite dog, Sancho, had just made his first point, 
when a keeper came up and told Joshua to take 
himself off, in no very classic English. Joshua 
therefore declined compliance. Upon this our keeper 
began to threaten. Joshua thereupon laid his gun 
aside, and coolly began taking off his coat (or, as 
the fancy would say, to peel), observing, "I came 
out for a day's sport, and a day's sport I'll have." 
Upon which our keeper shot off, leaving Joshua in 
possession of the field, from which he used to boast 
he carried of a full bag. ' At another time 

A PARTY OF OXONIANS, 

Gamesomely inclined, were driving, tandem, for the 
neighbourhood of Woodstock, when passing a stingy 
old cur, yclept a country gentleman, who had 
treated some one of the party a shabby trick, a 
thought struck them that now was the hour for 
revenge. They drove in bang up style to the 
front of the old man's mansion, and coolly told the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 133 

servant, that they had just seen his master, who had 
desired them to say, that he was to serve them up a 
good dinner and wine, and in the meantime show 
them where the most game was to be found. This 
was done, and after a roaring day's sport, and a full 
gorge of roast, baked, and boiled, washed down with 
the best ale, port, and sherry, the old boy's cellar 
could furnish, they made Brazen-nose College, Oxon, 
8, p.m., much delighted with the result, and luckily 
the affair went no further, at the time at least. 



BISHOP WATSON'S OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS 
PROGRESS AT CAMBRIDGE. 

" Soon after the death of my father," says this 
learned prelate, in his Autobiography, published in 
1816, " I was sent to the university, and admitted a 
sizer of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 3rd of 
November, 1754. I did not know a single person 
in the university, except my tutor, Mr. Backhouse, 
who had been my father's scholar, and Mr. Preston, 
who had been my own school-fellow, I commenced 
my academic studies with great eagerness, from 
knowing that my future fortune was to be wholly of 
my own fabricating, being certain that the slender 
portion which my father had left to me (300Z.) would 
be barely sufficient to carry me through my educa- 
tion. I had no expectations from relations ; indeed 
I had not a relative so near as a first cousin in the 
world, except my mother, and a brother and sister, 
who were many years older than me. My mother's 



134 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

maiden name was Newton; she was a very cha- 
ritable and good woman, and I am indebted to her 
(I mention it with filial piety) for imbuing' my 
young mind with principles of religion, which 
have never forsaken me. Erasmus, in his little 
treatise, entitled Antibarbarorum, says, that the 
safety of states depend upon three things, a pro- 
per or improper education of the prince, upon 
public preachers, and upon schoolmasters ; and he 
might with equal reason have added, upon mothers ; 
for the code of the mother precedes that of the 
school-master, and may stamp upon the rasa tabula 
of the infant mind, characters of virtue and religion 
which no time can efface. Perceiving that the sizers 
were not so respectfully looked upon by the pen- 
sioners and scholars of the house as they ought to 
have been, inasmuch as the most learned and leading 
men of the university have even arisen from that 
order (M agister Art is ingenique largitor venter), I 
offered myself for a scholarship a year before the usual 
time of the sizers sitting, and succeeded on the 2nd 
of May, 1757. This step increased my expenses in 
college, but it was attended with a great advantage. 
It was the occasion of my being particularly noticed 
by Dr. Smith, the master of the college. He was, 
from the examination he gave me, so well satisfied 
with the progress I had made in my studies, that out 
of the sixteen who were elected scholars, he appointed 
me to a particular one (Lady Jermyn's) then vacant, 
and in his own disposal ; not, he said to me, as being 
better than other scholarships, but as a mark of his 
approbation ; he recommended Saunderson s Fluxions, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 135 

then just published, and some other mathematical 
books, to my perusal, and gave in a word a spur to 
my industry, and wings to my ambition. I had, at 
the time of my being elected a scholar, been resident 
in college two years and seven months, without 
having gone out of it for a single day. During that 
period I had acquired some knowledge of Hebrew, 
greatly improved myself in Greek and Latin, made 
considerable progress in mathematics and natural 
philosophy, and studied with much attention Locke's 
works, King's book on the Origin of Evil, PurTen- 
dorfs Treatise De Officio Hominis et Civis, and 
some other books on similar subjects ; I thought 
myself, therefore, entitled to some little relaxation. 
Under this persuasion I set forward, May 30, 1757. 
to pay my elder and only brother a visit at Kendal. 
He was the first curate of the New Chapel there, to 
the structure of which he had subscribed liberally. 
He was a man of lively parts, but being thrown into 
a situation where there was no great room for the 
display of his talents, and much temptation to convi- 
vial festivity, he spent his fortune, injured his con- 
stitution, and died when I was about the age of 
thirty-three, leaving a considerable debt, all of 
which I paid immediately, though it took almost my 
all to do it. My mind did not much relish the 
country, at least it did not relish the life I led in 
that country town, the constant reflection that I was 
idling away my time mixed itself with every amuse- 
ment, and poisoned all the pleasures I had promised 
myself from the visit ; I therefore took a hasty reso- 
lution of shortening it, and returned to college in the 



136 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

beginning of September, with a determined purpose 
to make my Alma Mater the mother of my fortunes. 
That, I well remember, was the expression I used to 
myself, as soon as I saw the turrets of King's College 
Chapel, as I was jogging on a jaded nag between 
Huntingdon and Cambridge. I was then only a 
Junior Soph ; yet two of my acquaintances, the year 
below me, thought that I knew so much more of 
mathematics than they did, that they importuned 
me to become their private tutor. I undoubtedly 
wished to have had my time to myself, especially till 
I had taken my degree ; but the narrowness of my 
circumstances, accompanied with a disposition to 
improve, or, more properly speaking, with a desire 
to appear respectable, induced me to comply with 
their request. From that period, for above thirty 
years of my life, and as long as my health lasted, a 
considerable portion of my time was spent in instruct- 
ing others without much instructing myself, or in 
presiding at disputations in philosophy or theology, 
from which, after a certain time, I derived little intel- 
lectual improvement. Whilst I was an under-graduate, 
I kept a great deal of what is called the best com- 
pany — that is of idle fellow-commoners, and other 
persons of fortune — but their manners never sub- 
dued my prudence; I had strong ambition to be 
distinguished, and was sensible that wealth might 
plead some excuse for idleness, extravagance, and 
folly in others, the want of wealth could plead more 
for me. When I used to be returning to my room 
at one or two in the morning, after spending a jolly 
evening, I often observed a light in the chamber of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 137 

one of the same standing with myself; this never 
failed to excite my jealousy, and the next day was 
always a day of hard study. I have gone without 
my dinner a hundred times on such occasions. I 
thought I never entirely understood a proposition 
in any part of mathematics or natural philosophy, 
till I was able, in a solitary walk, obstipo capite 
atque ex porrecto labello, to draw the scheme in my 
head, and go through every step of the demonstra- 
tion without book or pen and paper. I found this 
was a very difficult task, especially in some of the 
perplexed schemes and long demonstrations of the 
twelfth Book of Euclid, and in UHopitaW Conic 
Sections, and in Newton s Principia. My walks for 
this purpose were so frequent, that my tutor, not 
knowing what I was about, once reproved me for 
being a lounger. I never gave up a difficult point 
in a demonstration till I had made it out proprio 
marte ; I have been stopped at a single step for 
three days. This perseverance in accomplishing 
whatever I undertook, was, daring the whole of my 
active life, a striking feature in my character. But 
though I stuck close to abstract studies, I did not 
neglect other things ; I every week imposed upon 
myself a task of composing a theme or declamation 
in Latin or English. I generally studied mathema- 
tics in the morning, and classics in the afternoon ; and 
used to get by heart such parts of orations, eitberin 
Latin or Greek, as particularly pleased me. Demos- 
thenes was the orator, Tacitus the historian, and 
Persius the satirist whom I most admired. I have 
mentioned this mode of study, not as thinking there 



138 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

was anything extraordinary in it, since there were 
many undergraduates then, and have always been 
many in the University of Cambridge, and, for aught 
I know, in Oxford, too, who have taken greater 
pains. But I mention it because I feel a complacence 
in the recollections of days long since happily spent, 
hoc est vivere bis vita posse priori frui, and indulge 
in a hope, that the perusal of what I have written 
may chance to drive away the spirit of indolence and 
dissipation from young men; especially from those 
who enter the world with slender means, as I did. 
In January, 1759, I took my Bachelor of Arts' 
degree. The taking of this first degree is a great 
era in academic life; it is that to which all the 
under-graduates of talent and diligence direct their 
attention. There is no seminary of learning in 
Europe in which youth are more zealous to excel 
during the first years of their education than in the 
University of Cambridge. I was the second wrangler 
of my year. In September, 1759, I sat for a Fel- 
lowship. At that time there never had been an 
instance of a Fellow being elected from among the 
junior Bachelors. The Master told me this as an 
apology for my not being elected, and bade me be 
contented till the next year. On the 1st of October, 
17G0, I was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, and 
put over the head of two of my seniors of the same 
year, who were, however, elected the next year. 
The old Master, whose memory I have ever revered, 
when he had done examining me, paid me this 
compliment, which was from him a great one : — 
• You have done your duty to the College ; it remains 



NUTS TO CRACK. , 139 

for the College to do theirs to you.' I was elected 
the next day, and became assistant tutor to Mr. 
Backhouse in the following* November." Every 
body knows his subsequent career embraced his 
appointment to the several dignified University 
offices of Tutor, Moderator, Professor of Chemistry, 
and Regius Professor of Divinity, and that he died 
Bishop of Llandaff. I may here, as an apposite tail- 
piece, add from Meadley's Life of that celebrated 
scholar and divine, 

PALEY'S SKETCH OF HIS EARLY ACADEMICAL LIFE. 

In the year 1795, during one of his visits to 
Cambridge, Dr. Paley, in the course of a conversa- 
tion on the subject, gave the following account of 
the early part of his own academical life ; and it is 
here given on the authority and in the very words of 
a gentleman who was present at the time, as a strik- 
ing instance of the peculiar frankness with which he 
was in the habit of relating adventures of his youth. 
" I spent the two first years of my undergraduate- 
ship (said he) happily, but unprofitably. I was 
constantly in society where we were not immoral, 
but idle and rather expensive. At the commence- 
ment of my third year, however, after having left 
the usual party at rather a late hour in the evening, 
I was awakened at five in the morning by one of my 
companions, who stood at my bedside and said, ' Paley 
I have been thinking what a d — d fool you are. 
I could do nothing, probably, were I to try, and can 
afford the life I lead : you can do everything, and 



140 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

cannot afford it. I have had no sleep during* the whole 
night on account of these reflections, and am now 
come solemnly to inform you, that, if you persist in 
your indolence, I must renounce your society/ 
I was so struck (continued Paley) with the visit and 
the visiter, that I lay in bed great part of the day 
and formed my plan : I ordered my bed-maker to 
prepare my fire every evening*, in order that it might 
be lighted by myself; I rose at five, read during 
the whole of the day, except such hours as chapel 
and hall required, allotting each portion of time its 
peculiar branch of study ; and, just before the closing 
of gates (nine o'clock) I went to a neighbouring 
coffee-house, where I constantly regaled upon a 
mutton-chop and a dose of milk punch : and thus 
on taking my bachelor's degree, I became senior 
wrangler'* He, too, filled the trust-worthy and 
dignified office of Tutor of his College, and deserved, 
though he did not die in possession of, a bishopric. 



THE LOUNGER. BY AN OXONIAN. 

I rise about nine, get to breakfast by ten, 

Blow a tune on my flute, or perhaps make a pen ; 

Read a play till eleven, or cock my laced hat ; 

Then step to my neighbours, till dinner, to chat. 

Dinner over, to Tom's, or to James's I go, 

The news of the town so impatient to know, 

While Law, Locke, and Newton, and all the rum race, 

That talk of their nodes, their ellipses, and space, 

The seat of the soul, and new systems on high, 

In holes, as abstruse as their mysteries, lie. 

From the coffee-house then I to Tennis away, 

And at five I post back to my College to pray : 



NUTS TO CRACK. 141 

I sup before eight, and secure from all duns, 
Undauntedly march to the Mitre or Tuns ; 
Where in punch or good claret my sorrows I drown, 
And toss off a bowl " To the best in the town : " 
At one in the morning I call what's to pay, 
Then home to my College I stagger away; 
Thus I tope all the night, as I trifle all day. 



AN OXFORD HOAX AND A PURITAN DETECTED. 

A certain Oxford D.D. at the head of a college, 
lately expected a party of maiden ladies, his sisters 
and others, to visit him from the country. They 
were strangers in Oxford, therefore, like another 
Bayard, he was anxious to meet them on their arrival 
and gallant them to his College. This, however, 
was to him, so little accustomed to do the polite to 
the ladies, an absolute event, and it naturally formed 
his prime topic of conversation for a month pre- 
viously. This provoked some of the Fellows of his 
College to put a hoax upon him, the most forward 

in which was one Mr. H , a puritan forsooth. 

Accordingly, a note was concocted and sent to the 
Doctor, in the name of the ladies, announcing, that 
they had arrived at tub Inn in Oxford. u The 
Inn ! " exclaimed the Doctor, on perusing it; " Good 
God ! how am I to know the Inn ? " However, 
after due preparation, off he set, in full canonicals, 
hunting for his belles and the Inn ! The Star, 
Mitre, Angel, all were searched ; at last, the Doctor, 
both tired and irritated, began to smell a rat ! The 
idea of a hoax flashed upon his mind ; he hurried to 
his lodgings, at his College, where the whole truth 



142 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

flashed upon him like a new lights and the window 
of his room being open, which overlooked the Fel- 
lows' garden, he saw a group of them rubbing their 

hands in high glee, and the ring-leader, Mr. H , 

in the midst: he was so roused at the sight, that, 
leaning from the window, he burst out with, — 

11 H ! you puritanical son of a bitch ! " It is 

needless to add, that the words, acting like a charm, 
quickly dissolved their council : but the Doctor, too 
amiable to remember what was not meant as an 
affront, himself afterwards both joined in and enjoyed 
the laugh created by the joke. 



MORE THAN ONE GOOD SAYING 

Is attributed to the non-juring divine, celebrated 
son of Oxon, and excellent English historian, 
Thomas Carte, who, falling under the suspicions of 
the Government, as a favourer of the Pretender, 
was imprisoned at the time the Habeas Corpus Act 
was suspended, in 1744. Whilst under examination 
by the Privy Council, the celebrated Duke of New- 
castle, then minister, asked him, " If he were not a 
B bishop ? " " No, my Lord Duke/' replied Carte, 
" there are no bishops in England, but what are 
made by your Grace ; and I am sure 1 have no reason 
to expect that honour." Walking, soon after he 
was liberated, in the streets of London, during a 
heavy shower of rain, he was plied with, " A coach, 
your reverence ? " u No, honest friend," was his 
answer, " this is not a reign for me to ride in." 



NUTS TO CRACK. 143 



HORACE WALPOLE A SAINT. 

Cole says, in his Athena Cant,, that Horace 
Walpole latterly lived and died a Sceptic ; but when 
a student at King's College, Cambridge, he was of 
" a religious enthusiastic turn of mind, and used to 
go with Ashton (the late Dr., Master of Jesus 
College), his then great friend, to pray with the 
prisoners in the castle." Dyer gives the following 
poetical version of 

A CAMBRIDGE CONUNDRUM. 

In his Supplement, on Doctors Long, Short, and 

Askew : — 

What's Doctor, and Dr., and 9 writ so ? 
Doctor Long, Doctor Short, and Doctor Askew. 



A BISHOP'S INTEREST. 

Bishop Porteus said of himself, when holding the 
See of Chester, that he u had not interest enough 
to command a Cheshire cheese." 



OXFORD FAMOUS FOR ITS SOPHISTS. 

" For sophistry, such as you may call corrupt and 
vain," says Wood, in the first volume of his Annals, 
** which we had derived from the Parisians, Oxford 
hath in ancient time been very famous, especially 
when many thousands of students were in her, 
equalling, if not exceeding, that university from 



144 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

whence they had it; a token of which, with its evil 
consequences, did lately remain, — I mean the qua- 
dragesimall exercises, which were seldom performed, 
or at least finished without the help of Mars. In 
the reign of Henry the Third, and before, the 
schools were much polluted with it, and became so 
notorious, that it corrupted other arts; and so would 
it afterwards have continued, had it not been cor- 
rected by public authority for the present, though 
in following times it increased much again, that it 
could not be rooted out. Some there were that 
wrote, 'others that preached against it, demonstrating 
the evil consequences thereof, and the sad end of 
those that delighted in it. Jacobus Januensis re- 
ports that one Mr. Silo, a Master of the University 
of Paris, and Professor of Logic, had a scholar there, 
with whom he was very familiar; and being excel- 
lent in the art of sophistry, spared not all occasions, 
whether festival or other day, to study it. This 
sophister being sick, and almost brought to death's 
door, Master Silo earnestly desired him, that after 
his death he would return to him and give him in- 
formation concerning his state, and how it fared 
with him. The sophister dying, returned according 
to promise, with his hood stuffed with notes of 
sophistry, and the inside lined with naming lire, 
telling him, that that was the reward which he had 
bestowed upon him for the renown he had before 
for sophistry ; but Mr. Silo esteeming it a small 
punishment, stretched out his hand towards him, 
on which a drop or spark of the said fire falling, 
was very soon pierced through with terrible pain ; 



I 



NUTS TO CRACK. 145 

which accident the defunct or ghost beholding, told 
Silo, that he need not wonder at that small matter, 
for he was burning in that manner all over. Is it 
so? (saith Silo) well, well, I know what I have to 
do. Whereupon, resolving to leave the world, and 
enter himself into religion, called his scholars about 
him, took his leave of, and dismissed them with 
these metres : — 

1 Linquo coax* ranis, crasf corvis, vanaque+ vanis, 
Ad Logicam pergo, que mortis non timet § ergo.' 

Which said story coming to the knowledge of certain 
Oxonians, about the year 1173 (as an obscure note 
which I have seen tells me), it fell out, that as one 
of them was answering for his degree in his school, 
which he had hired, the opponent dealt so maliciously 
with him, that he stood up and spake before the 
auditory thus : ' Profecto, profecto, StcJ ' Truly, 
truly, sir sophister, if you proceed thus, I protest 
before this assembly I will not answer; pray, sir, 
remember Mr. Silo's scholar at Paris,' — intimating 
thereby, that if he did not cease from vain babblings, 
purgatory, or a greater punishment, should be his 
end. Had such examples been often tendered to 
them (adds Wood, with real bowels of compassion), 
as they were to the Parisians, especially that which 
happened to one Simon Churney, or Thurney, or 
Tourney (Fuller says, Thurway, a Cornish man), 

* Luxuriam scil. luxuriosis, vel potius rixas sophistis. 
•f Avaritiam scil. avaris. 
£ Superbiam pomposis. 

religionem ubi bene viventi non nmetur stimulus morti*. 
L 



146 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

an English Theologist there (who was suddenly 
struck dumb, because he vainly gloried that he, in 
his disputations, could be equally for or against the 
Divine truth), it might have worked more on their 
affections ; but this being a single relation, it could 
not long be wondered at." After these logical mar- 
vels, Anthony gives us the following instance of 

A VICE-CHANCELLOR'S BEING LACONIC. 

" Dr. Prideaux, when he resigned the office of 
Vice-Chancellor, 22nd July, 1626 (which is never 
done without an oration spoken from the chair in the 
convocation, containing for the most part an account 
of the acts done in the time of their magistrateship), 
spoke only the aforesaid metres, * Linquo coax,' &c. 
supposing there was more matter in them than the 
best speech he could make, frustrating thereby the 
great hopes of the Academicians of an eloquent 
oration." 

" Oxford hath been so famous for sophistry, and 
hath used such a particular way in the reading and 
learning it," adds Wood, in treating of the schools, 
" that it hath often been styled — 

c SOPHISTRIA SECUNDUM USUMl OXON.' 

So famous, also, for subtlety of logicians, that no 
place hath excelled it." This great subtlety, how- 
ever, would seem, in a degree, to have departed from 
our sister of Oxford in 1532, when, they say, 

TWO PERT OXONIANS 

Took a journey to Cambridge, and challenged any 



NUTS TO CRACK. 147 

to dispute with them there, in the public schools, 
on the two following questions : — " An jus Civile sit 
Medicind prcestantius ?'* In English as much as to 
say, Which does most execution, Civil Law or 
Medicine? — a nice point, truly. But the other 
formed the subject of serious argumentation, and 
ran thus : — " An mulier condemnata, bis ruptis lo- 
queis, sit tertio suspendenda?" Ridley, the Bishop 
and martyr, then a young man, student or Fellow 
of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, is said to have been 
one of the opponents on this interesting occasion, 
and administered the jlagellce linguce with such 
happy effect to one of these pert pretenders to logic 
lore, that the other durst not set his wit upon him. 
The Oxford sophistry had so much 

CORRUPTED THE LATIN TONGUE 

There, says Wood, that the purity thereof being 
lost among the scholars, " their speaking became 
barbarous, and derived so constantly to their suc- 
cessors, that barbarous speaking of Latin was com- 
monly styled by many 

1 Oxoniensis loquenti raos.' 

The Latin of the schools, in the present day, is 
none of the purest at either University. A certain 
Cambridge Divine, a Professor, who was a senior 
wrangler, and is justly celebrated for his learning 
and great ability, one day presiding at an act in Arts, 
upon a dog straying into the school, and putting in 
for a share of the logic with a howl at the audience, 
the Moderator exclaimed, " Verte canem ex." There 
l 2 



148 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

have, however, been fine displays of pure Latinity 
in the schools of both ; and it appears 

THE OXONIANS SURPASSED ARISTOTLE 

At a very early period, not only in the art of logic 
itself, but in their manner of applying it : for in the 
beginning of 1517, says Wood, about the latter end 
of Lent (a fatal time for the most part to the 
Oxonians), a sore discord fell out between the 
Cistercian and Benedictine monks, concerning several 
philosophical points discussed by them in the schools. 
But their arguments being at length flung aside, 
they decided the controversy by blows, which, with 
sore scandal, continued a considerable time. At 
length the Benedictines rallying up what forces 
they could procure, they beset the Cistercians, and 
by force of arms made them fly and betake them- 
selves to their hostels. In fact, he says, by the use 
of logic, and the trivial arts, the Oxford sophists, 
in the time of Lent, broke the king's peace, so that 
the University privileges were several times sus- 
pended, and in danger of being lessened or taken 
away. Through the corrupt use of it, " the Parva 
Logicalia, and other minute matters of Aristotle, 
many things of that noble author have been so 
changed from their original, by the screwing in and 
adding many impertinent things, that Tho. Nashe 
(in his book, < Have at you to Saffron Walden'), 
hath verily thought, that if Aristotle had risen out 
of his grave, and disputed with the sophisters, they 
would not only have baffled him with their sophistry, 
but with his own logic, which they had disguised, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 149 

and he composed without any impurity or corruption. 
It may well be said, that in this day they have done 
no more than what Tom Nashe's beloved Dick 
Harvey did afterwards at Cambridge, that is to say, 

HE SET ARISTOTLE WITH HIS HEELS UPWARDS 
ON THE SCHOOL GATES, 

With ass's ears on his head, — a thing that Tom 
would < in perpetuam rei memoriam,' record and 
never have done with. Wilson, in his Memorabilia 
Cantabrigice, says of this said Tom Nash, that he 
was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, 
where he resided seven years, was at the fatal repast 
of the pickled herrings with the poet Green, and, 
in 1597, was either confined or otherwise troubled 
for a comedy on the Isle of Dogs (extant in the 
MSS. of Oldys), though he wrote but the first act, 
and the players without his knowledge supplied the 
rest. He was a man of humour, a bitter satirist, 
and no contemptible poet ; and more effectually dis- 
couraged and non-plused the notorious anti-prelate 
and astrologer, Will Harvey, and his adherents, than 
all the serious writers that attacked them. There is 
a good character of him, says Oldys, in Hie return 
from Parnassus, or Scourge of Simony, which was 
publicly acted by the students of St. John's, in 1606. 
wherein 

THEY FIRST EXEMPLIFIED THE ART OF CUTTING, 

An elegant term, that is in equal request at the 
sister university, as well as amongst the coxcombs 



150 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of the day, adds Wilson, though the members of St. 
John's are celebrated for the origin of the term " to 
cut," — i.e. " to look an old friend in the face, and 
affect not to know him," which is the cut direct. 
Those who would be more deeply read in this art, 
which has been greatly improved since the days in 
which it originated, w T ill find it at large in the Gradus 
ad Cantabrigiam. 



CROMWELL'S SOLDIERS AT A DISPUTATION AT 
OXFORD. 

It was a custom of Dr. Kettel, while President 
of Trinity College, Oxford (says Tom Warton, citing' 
the MSS. of Dr. Bathurst, in his Appendix to 
his Life of Sir Thomas Pope), " to attend daily 
the disputations in the college-hall, on which 
occasions he constantly wore a large black furred 
muff. Before him stood an hour-glass, brought by 
himself into the hall, and placed on the table, for 
ascertaining the time of the continuance of the 
exercise, which was to last an hour at least. One 
morning, after Cromwell's soldiers had taken posses- 
sion of Oxford, a halberdier rushed into the hall 
during this controversy, and plucking off our vene- 
rable Doctor's muff, threw it in his face, and then, 
with a stroke of his halberd, broke the hour-glass in 
pieces. The Doctor, though old and infirm, instantly 
seized the soldier by the collar, who was soon over- 
powered, by the assistance of the disputants. The 
halberd was carried out of the hall in triumph before 
the Doctor ; but the prisoner, with his halberd, was 



NUTS TO CRACK. 151 

quickly rescued by a party of soldiers, who stood 
at the bottom of the hall, and had enjoyed the 
whole transaction." It was in the grove of this 
college, during Monmouth's Rebellion of 1685, that 
Sir Philip Bertie, a younger son of Robert Earl of 
Lindsay, who was a member of Trinity College, and 
had spoken a copy of verses in the theatre at Oxford, 
in 1683, to the Duke and Duchess of York, &c, 
trained a company, chiefly of his own college, of 
which he was captain, in the militia of the university. 

TROOPS BEING RAISED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF 
OXFORD, 

Says Warton, in Monmouth's Rebellion. It reminds 
me of a curious anecdote concerning Smith's famous 
Ode, entitled Pocockius, which I give from MSS., 
Cod. Balland, vol. xix. Lit. 104 : — " The University 
raised a regiment for the King's service, and Christ- 
Church and Jesus' Colleges made one company, of 
which Lord Morris, since Earl of Abingdon, was 
captain, who presented Mr. Urry (the editor of 
Chaucer), a corporal (serjeant) therein, with a hal- 
berd. Upon Dr. Pocock's death, Mr. Urry lugged 
Captain Rag (Smith) into his chamber in Peck- 
water, locked him in, put the key in his pocket, and 
ordered his bedmaker to supply him with necessaries 
through the window, and told him he should not 
come out till he made 

A COPY OF VERSES ON THE DOCTOR'S DEATH. 

The sentence being irreversible, the captain made the 



152 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Ode, and sent it, with his epistle, to Mr. Urry, who 
thereupon had his release." " The epistle here 
mentioned/* adds, Tom " is a ludicrous prose analysis 
of the Ode, beginning Opusculum tuum, Halberdarie 
amplissime" &c, and is printed in the fourth volume 
of Dr. Johnson's English Poets, who pronounces it 
unequalled by modern writers. This same Oxonian, 
Smith, had obtained the soubriquet of 

CAPTAIN RAG 

By his negligence of dress. He was bred at West- 
minster School, under Doctor Busby ; and it is to be 
remembered, for his honour, " that, when at the 
Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of 
the universities, he so signally distinguished himself 
by his conspicuous performances, that there arose 
no small contention between the representatives of 
Trinity College in Cambridge, and Christ-Church in 
Oxon, which of those two royal societies should 
adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity 
having a preference of choice that year, they resolutely 
elected him ; who yet, being invited the same time to 
Christ-Church, he chose to accept of a studentship 
there." 



THE THREE DAINTY MORSELS. 

When our learned Oxonian, Dr. Johnson, was on 
his tour in the Hebrides, accompanied by Bozzy, as 
Peter Pindar has it, says an American writer, they 
had one day travelled so far without refreshment, 



V. 






N'UTS TO CRACK. 153 

that the Doctor began to growl in his best manner. 
Upon this Bozzy hastened to a cottage at a distance, 
ordered a dinner, and was lucky in obtaining the 
choice of a roast leg of mutton and the Doctor's 
favourite plum-pudding. Upon reaching the house, 
the appetite of the latter drove him into the kitchen 
to inspect progress, where he saw a boy basting the 
meat, from whose head he conceited he saw some- 
thing descend, by the force of gravity, into the 
dripping-pan. The meat was at length served up, 
and Bozzy attacked it with great glee, exclaiming, 
• ; My dear Doctor, do let me help you to some, — 
brown as a berry, — done to a turn." The Doctor 
said he would wait for the pudding, chuckling with 
equal glee, whilst Bozzy nearly devoured the whole 
joint. The pudding at length came, done to a turn 
too, which the Doctor in his turn greedily devoured, 
without so much as asking Bozzy to a bit. After he 
had wiped his mouth, and begun to compose himself, 
Bozzy entreated to know what he was giggling about 
whilst he eat the mutton ? The Doctor clapped his 
hands to both sides for support, as he told him what 
he saw in the kitchen. Bozzy thereupon begun to 
exhibit sundry qualms and queer faces, and calling in 
the boy, enclaimed, ;i You rascal, why did you not 
cover your dirty head with your cap when basting 
the meat ? n u 'Cause mother took it to boil the 
pudding in !" said the urchin. The tables were 
turned. The Doctor stared aghast, stamped, and 
literally roared, with a voice of thunder, that if Bozzy 
ever named the circumstance to any one. it should 
bring down upon him his eternal displeasure ! The 



154 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

following-, not very dissimilar anecdote, is told of a 
Cantab, who was once out hunting till his appetite 
became as keen as the Doctor's, and, like his, drove 
him to the nearest cottage. The good dame spread 
before him and his friend the contents of her larder, 
which she described as " a meat pie, made of odds 
and ends, the remnant of their own frugal meal." 
" Anything is better than nothing," cried the half- 
famished Cantab, " so let us have it — ha, Bob." 
Bob, who w r as another Cantab, his companion, nodded 
assent. No sooner was the savoury morsel placed 
before him, than he commenced operations, and 
greedily swallowed mouthful after mouthful, exclaim- 
ing, " Charming ! I never tasted a more delicious 
morsel in my life ! But what have we here ? " said 
he, as he sucked something he held in both hands ; 
" Fish, as well as flesh, my good woman ? " " Fish ! ' 
cried the old dame, as she turned from her washing 
to eye our sportsman, " why, Lord bless ye, i' that 
bean't our Billy's comb /" The effect was not a little 
ludicrous on our hungry Cantab, whilst Bob's "Haw! 
haw! haw! " might have been heard from the Thames 
Tunnel to Nootka Sound. 



ANSWERED IN KIND. 

Why should we smother a good thing with mysti- 
fying dashes, instead of plain English high-sounding 
names, when the subjec: is of " honourable men ?" 
" Recte facta refert." — Horace forbid it! The 
learned Chancery Barrister, John Bell, K.C., " the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 155 

Great Bell of Lincoln," as he has been aptly called, 
was Senior Wrangler, on graduating- B.A., at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, in 1786, with many able com- 
petitors for that honour. He is likewise celebrated, 
as every body knows, for writing three several hands ; 
one only he himself can read, another nobody but his 
clerk can read, and a third neither himself, clerk, nor 
any body else can read ! It was in the latter hand 
he one day wrote to his legal contemporary and 
friend, the present Sir Launcelot Shadwell, Vice- 
Chancellor of England (who is likewise a Cantab, 
and graduated in 1800 at St. John's College, of which 
he became a Fellow, with the double distinction of 
Seventh Wrangler and Second Chancellor's Medallist) 
inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot, finding all his 
attempts to decipher the note about as vain as the 
wise men found theirs to unravel the Cabalistic 
characters of yore, took a sheet of paper, and having 
smeared it over with ink, he folded and sealed it, and 
sent it as his answer. The receipt of it staggered 
even the Great Bell of Lincoln, and after breaking 
the seal, and eyeing and turning it round and round, 
he hurried to Mr. ShadwelFs chambers with it, de- 
claring he could make nothing of it. " Nor I of your 
note," retorted Mr. S. " My dear fellow,'' ex- 
claimed Mr. B., taking his own letter in his hand, is 
not this, as plain as can be, " Dear Shadwell, I shall 
be glad to see you at dinner to-day." " And is not 
this equally as plain," said Mr. S., pointing to his 
own paper, tt My dear Bell, I shall be happy to come 
and dine with you." 



156 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



POWERS OF DIGESTION. 

In both Oxford and Cambridge the cooks are 
restricted to a certain sum each term, beyond which 
the college will not protect them in their demand 
upon the students. All else are extras, and are 
included in " sizings" in Cambridge ; in Oxford the 
term is " to battel" The head of a college in the 

latter university, not long since, sent for Mr. P , 

one of his society, who had batteled much beyond 

the allowance ; and after Mr. P had endeavoured 

to excuse himself on the ground of appetite, turning 
to the account, the Rector observed, " meat for break- 
fast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner, meat for supper," 
and looking up in the face of the dismayed student, 
he exclaimed, with his Welsh accent, " Christ Jesus ! 

Mr. P , what guts you must have." This 

reminds me of 

A CAMBRIDGE D.D., 

Now no more, who is said to have been a great 
gourmand, and weighed something less than thirty 
stone, but not much. At the college table, where 
our D.D. daily took his meal, in order that he 
might the better put his hand upon the dainty 
morsels, being very corpulent, he caused a piece 
to be scooped out, to give him a fair chance. His 
chair was also so placed, that his belly was three 
inches from the table at sitting down, and when he 
had eaten till he touched it, his custom was to lay 
down his knife and fork and desist, lest, by eating 



NUTS TO CRACK. 157 

too much, any dangerous malady should ensue. A 
waggish Fellow of his college, however, one day 
removed his chair double the distance from the table, 
which the doctor not observing, began to eat as usual. 
After taking more than his quantum, and finding 
that he was still an inch or two from the goal, he 
threw down his knife and fork in despair, exclaiming, 
he " was sure he was going i to die ;" but having 
explained the reason, he was relieved of his fears on 
hearing the joke had been played him. 



THE INSIDE PASSENGER. 

Every Cantab of the nineteenth century must 
remember our friend Smith of the Blue-Boar, Trinity 
Street, charioteer of that now defunct vehicle and 
pair which used to ply between Cambridge, New- 
market, and Bury St. Edmunds, and on account of 
its celerity, and other marked qualities, was called 
" The Slow and Dirty" by Freshman, Soph, 
Bachelor, and Big-wig, now metamorphosed into a 
handsome four-in-hand, over which our friend Smith 
presides in a style worthy of the Club itself! He 
had one day, in olden time, pulled up at Botsham, 
midway between Newmarket and Cambridge, when 
there happened to be several Cantabs on the road, 
who were refreshing their nags at the cc self-same" 
inn, the Swan, at which the Slow and Dirty made 
its daily halt. u Any passengers ?" inquired Smith. 
" One inside," said a Cambridge wag, standing by, 
whose eye was the moment caught by a young ass 
feeding on the nettles in a neighbouring nook. 



158 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Having put his fellows up to the joke, Smith was 
invited in- doors and treated with a glass of grog ; 
meanwhile, my gentleman with the long ears was 
popped inside the coach. Smith coming out, inquired 
after his passenger, whom he supposed one of his 
friends, the Cantabs, and learnt he was housed. 
" All right," said Smith, and off he drove, followed 
quickly by our wag and party on horseback, who 
determined to be in at the denouement. Smith had 
not made much way, when our inside passenger, not 
finding himself in clover, popped his head out at one 
of the coach windows. The spectacle attracted the 
notice of many bipeds as they passed along ; Smith, 
however, notwithstanding their laughter, " kept the 
even tenor of his way." At Barnwell the boys 
huzzaed with more than their usual greetings, but 
still Smith kept on, unconscious of the cause. He no 
sooner made Jesus' Lane, than crowds began to follow 
in his wake, and he dashed into the Blue-Boar yard 
with a tail more numerous than that upon the 
shoulders of which Dan O'Connell rode into the first 
Reformed Parliament, Feargus included. Down 
went the reins, as the ostlers came to the head of his 
smoking prads, and Smith was in a moment at the 
coach door, with one hand instinctively upon the latch, 
and the other raised to his hat, when the whole truth 
flashed upon his astonished eyes, and Balaam was 
safely landed, amidst peals of laughter, in which our 
friend Smith was not the least uproarious. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 159 



PALEY'S CELEBRATED SCHOOL ACT. 

When Paley, in 1 762, kept his act in the schools, 
previously to his entering the senate-house, to contend 
for mathematical honours, it was under the moderators, 
Dr. John Jebb, the famous physician and advocate 
of reform in church and state, and the learned Dr. 
Richard Watson, late Bishop of Llandaff. Johnson s 
Questiones Philosophic ce was the book then com- 
monly resorted to in the university for subjects 
usually disputed of in the schools; and he fixed 
upon two questions, in addition to his mathematical 
one, which to his knowledge had never before 
been subjects of disputation. The one was against 
Capital Punishments ; the other against the Eternity 
of Hell Torments. As soon, however, as it came to 
the knowledge of the heads of the university that 
Paley had proposed such questions to the moderators, 
knowing his abilities, though young, lest it should 
give rise to a controversial spirit, the master of his 
college, Dr. Thomas, was requested to interfere and 
put a stop to the proceeding, which he did, and 
Bishop Watson thus records the fact in his Auto- 
biography : — " Paley had brought me, for one of 
the questions he meant for his act, JEternitas pcena- 
rum contradicit Divinis Attributis ! The Eternity 
of Hell Torments contrary to the Divine Attributes. 
I had accepted it. A few days afterwards he came to 
me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his 
college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his 
not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted 



160 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

him to change it, and told him that, if it would 
lessen his master's apprehensions, he might put a 
' non ' before c contradicit ;' making the question, 
The Eternity of Hell Torments not contrary to the 
Divine Attributes : and he did so/' In the following 
month of January he was senior wrangler. 

HE WAS NOT FOND OF CLASSICAL STUDIES, 

And used to declare he could read no Latin author 
with pleasure but Virgil : yet when the members' 
prize was awarded to him for a Latin prose essay, 
in 1765, which he had illustrated with English notes, 
he was, strange enough, though his disregard of the 
classics was well known, suspected of being the 
author of the Latin only. The reverse was probably 
nearer the truth. It is notorious that 

HE WAS NOT SKILLED IN PROSODY ; 

And w r hen, in 1795, he proceeded to D.D., after 
being made Sub-Dean of Lincoln, he, in the delivery 
of his Clerum, pronounced profugus profugus, which 
gave some Cambridge wag occasion to fire at him the 
following epigram : — 

" Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit 
Litora ; ***** 

Errat Virgilius, forte profugus erat." 

He had * 

A SPICE OF CUTTING HUMOUR 

In his composition, and some time after the Bishop 
of Durham so honourably and unsolicited presented 



NUTS TO CRACK. 161 

him to the valuable living of Bishop Wearmouth, 
dining with his lordship in company with an aged 
divine, the latter observed in conversation, " that, 
although he had been married about forty years, he 
had never had the slightest difference with his wife." 
The prelate was pleased at so rare an instance of 
connubial felicity, and was about to compliment his 
guest thereon, when Paley, with an arch cc Quid ? " 
observed, ' ' Don't you think it must have been very 
flat, my Lord ? M 

A KULE OF HIS. 

A writer, recording his on dits, in the New 
Monthly Magazine, says, in Paley's own words, he 
made it a rule never to buy a book that he wanted 
to read but once. In more than one respect, 

HE WAS UNLIKE DR. PARR. 

The latter had a great admiration for the canonical 
dress of his order, and freely censured the practice 
of clergymen not generally appearing in it. When 
on a visit to his friend, the celebrated Mr. Roscoe, 
at that gentleman's residence near Liverpool, Parr 
used to ride through the village in full costume, 
including his famous wig, to the no small amusement 
of the rustics, and chagrin of his companion, the 
present amiable and learned Thomas Roscoe, ori- 
ginator and editor of " The Landscape Annual," 
&c. Paley wore a white wig, and a coat cut in the 
close court style : but could never be brought to 
patronise, at least in the country, that becoming part 

M 



162 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of the dress of a dignitary of the church, a cassock, 
which he used to call a black apron, such as the 
master tailors wear in Durham/' 



HE WAS NEVER A GOOD HORSEMAN. 

" When I followed my father/' he says, " on a 
pony of my own, on my first journey to Cambridge, 
I fell off seven times. My father, on hearing a 
thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, 
( Take care of thy money, lad ! ' " This defect he 
never overcame : for when advanced in years, he 
acknowledged he was still so bad a horseman, " that 
if any man on horseback were to come near me when 
I am riding/' he would say, " I should certainly have 
a fall ; company would take off my attention, and I 
have need of all I can command to manage my horse, 
the quietest creature that ever lived; one that, at 
Carlisle, used to be covered with children from the 
ears to the tail." 



HIS TWO OR THREE REASONS FOR EXCHANGING 
LIVINGS. 

Meadly, his biographer, relates, that when asked 
why he had exchanged his living of Dalston for Stan- 
wix ? he frankly replied, " Sir, I have two or three 
reasons for taking Stanwix in exchange: first, it saved 
me double housekeeping, as Stanwix was within 
twenty minutes' walk of my house in Carlisle ; 
secondly, it was 50/. a-year more in value ; and, 
thirdly, I began to find my stock of sermons coming 
over again too fast." He was 



NUTS TO CRACK. 163 



A DISCIPLE OF IZAAK WALTON, 

And carried his passion for angling so far, that when 
Romney took his portrait, he would be taken with a 
rod and line in his hand. 



HIS WAY WHEN HE WANTED TO WRITE. 

(< When residing at Carlisle/' he says, " if I 
wanted to write anything particularly well, I used 
to order a post-chaise, and go to a quiet comfortable 
inn, at Longtown, where I was safe from the trouble 
and bustle of a family, and there I remained until I 
had finished what I was about." In this he was 

A CONTRAST TO DR. GOLDSMITH, 

Who, when he meditated his incomparable poem of 
the " Deserted Village," went into the country, and 
took a lodging at a farm-house, where he remained 
several weeks in the enjoyment of rural ease and 
picturesque scenery, but could make no progress in 
his work. At last he came back to a lodging in 
Green- Arbour Court, opposite Newgate, and there, 
in a comparatively short time, in the heart of the 
metropolis, surrounded with all the antidotes to ease, 
he completed his task — qudm nullum ultra verbum. 



m2 



164 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



PALEY*S DIFFICULTIES A USEFUL LESSON TO 
YOUTH. 

Soon after he became senior wrangler, having no 
immediate prospect of a fellowship, he became an 
assistant in a school at Greenwich, where, he says, I 
pleased myself with the imagination of the delightful 
task I was about to undertake, ee teaching the young 
idea how to shoot/' As soon as I was seated, a little 
urchin came up to me and began, — " b-a-b, bab, 
b-l-e, ble, babble ! " Nevertheless, at this time, the 
height of his ambition was to become the first assist- 
ant. During this period, he says, he restricted 
himself for some time to the mere necessaries of 
life, in order that he might be enabled to discharge 
a few debts, which he had incautiously contracted at 
Cambridge. " My difficulties," he observes, " might 
afford a useful lesson to youth of good principles ; 
for my privations produced a habit of economy which 
was of infinite service to me ever after/' At this 
time I wanted a waistcoat, and went into a second- 
hand clothes-shop. It so chanced that I bought the 
very same garment that Lord Clive wore when he 
made his triumphal entry into Calcutta. 

IN HIS POVERTY HE WAS LIKE PARR. 

The finances of the latter obliged him to leave 
Cambridge without a degree ; after he had been 
assistant at Harrow, had a school at Stanmore, and 
been head master of the grammar school at Colches- 



NUTS TO CRACK. 165 

ter, and had become head master of that of Norwich, 
they remained so low that once looking upon a small 
library, says Mr. Field, in his Life of the Doctor, 
" his eye was caught by the title, ' Stephani The- 
saurus Linguae Graecae/ turning suddenly about, and 
striking violently the arm of the person whom he 
addressed, in a manner very unusual with him, ' Ah ! 
my friend, my friend/ he exclaimed, c may you never 
be forced, as / was at Norwich, to sell that work — 
to me so precious — from absolute and urgent neces- 
sity ! ' " At one time of my life," he said, " I had 
but 14/. in the world. But then, I had good spirits, 
and owed no man sixpence ! " 



PORSOX, TOO, WAS A CONTRAST TO PALEY. 

The first, it is well known, vacated his fellow- 
ship, and left himself pennyless, rather than sub- 
scribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, from which there is 
no doubt he conscientiously dissented ; and when 
asked to subscribe his belief in the notorious Shaks- 
peare forgery of the Irelands, his reply was, f< I 
subscribe to no articles of faith." When Paley was 
solicited to sign his name to the supplication of the 
petitioning clergy, for relief from subscription, he 
has the credit of replying, he " could not afford to 
keep a conscience" a saying that many have cherished 
to the prejudice of that great man's memory, but 
which it is more than probable he said in his dry, 
humorous manner, without suspicion it would be 
remembered at all, and merely to rid himself of 



166 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

some importunate applicant. Paley, it is well known, 
notwithstanding the conclusions to which some 
interested writers have come, was strongly and con- 
scientiously attached to the doctrines and constitution 
of the Established Church ; and it was impossible 
but that, with his fine common-sense perception, he 
must have been well aware, that no Established 
Church, such as is that of England, could long exist 
as such, if not fenced round by articles of faith. 
And here I am reminded of an 



ANECDOTE OF THE GREAT LORD BURLEIGH AND 
THE DISSENTERS OF HIS DAY. 

He was once very much pressed by a body of 
Divines, says Collins, in his Life, to make some 
alteration in the Liturgy, upon which he desired 
them to go into the next room by themselves, and 
bring in their unanimous opinion on the disputed 
points. But they very soon returned without being 
able to agree. a Why, gentlemen," said he, " how 
can you expect that I should alter my point in dis- 
pute, when you, who must be more more competent 
to judge, from your situation, than I can possibly be, 
cannot agree among yourselves in what manner you 
would have me alter it." 



OTHER SAVINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN 

Were, that he would " never truste anie man not 
of sounde religion ; for he that is false to God, can 
never be true to man." 



XUTS TO CRACK. 167 

Parents, he said, were to be blamed for " the 
unthrifty looseness of youth," who made them men 
seven years too soon, and when they " had but 
children's judgments." 

" Warre is the curse, and peace the blessinge of a 
countrie; " and ie a realme," he said, cc gaineth more 
by one year's peace, than by tenne years' warre." 

" That nation," he would observe, " was happye 
where the king would take counsell and follow it." 
With such a sage minister, it is not surprising that 
Elizabeth was the greatest princess that ever lived, 
nor that she gave such wise laws to Cambridge, whose 
Chancellor he was. 

PORSOXS PROGRESS IX KNOWLEDGE 

" When I was seventeen," Porson once observed, 
" I thought I knew everything ; as soon as I was 
twenty-four, and had read Bentley, I found I knew 
nothing. Xow I have challenged the great scholars 
of the age to find Jive faults to their one, in any 
work, ancient or modern, they decline it." On 
another occasion, he described himself as 



A GENTLEMAN WITHOUT SIXPENCE IN HIS 
POCKET. 

Porson declining to enter into holy orders, as the 
>tatute of his college required he should do, lost his 
fellowship at Trinity, after he had enjoyed it ten 
years; " on which heart-rending occasion," says his 
friend and admirer, Dr. Kidd, c * he used to observe. 



168 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

with his usual good humour (for nothing could 
depress him), that he was a gentleman living in 
London without a sixpence in his pocket" Two 
years afterwards his friends procured his election to 
the Regius Professorship of Greek, on the death of 
Professor Cooke, the sudden news of which event, 
he says, in a letter printed in Parriana, addressed to 
the then Master of Trinity, the learned Dr. Postle- 
thwaite, all his ambition of that sort having been 
long ago laid asleep, " put me in mind of poor 
Jacob, who, having served seven years in hopes of 
being rewarded with Rachel, awoke, and behold it 
was Leah." He had seven years previously pro- 
jected a course of lectures in Greek, which most 
unaccountably were not patronised by the Senate. 



GREEK PROTESTANTS AT OXFORD. 

Mr. Pointer says, in his Oxoniensis Accidentia, fyc, 
speaking of the curiosities connected with Worcester 
College, there were " Ruins of a Royal Palace, 
built by King Henry the First, in Beaumont, near 
Gloucester-green, upon some parts of which ruins, 
the late Dr. WoodrofF (when principal of Gloucester 
Hall, now Worcester College) built lodgings for the 
education of young scholars from Greece, who, after 
they had been here educated in the reformed reli- 
gion, were to be sent back to their own country, in 
order to propagate the same there. And accordingly 
some young Grecians were brought hither, and wore 
their Grecian habits; but, not finding suitable 
encouragement, this project came to nothing/' 



NUTS TO CRACK. 169 

JUDGMENT OF ERASMUS ON THE CAMBRIDGE FOLK. 

Fuller says, that Erasmus thus wrote of the Cam- 
bridge folk, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
" Vulgus Cantabrigiense, inhospitales Britannos an- 
tecedit, qui cum summa rusticitate summum militiam 
conjunxere." This will by no means now apply to 
the better class of tradespeople, and in no place that 
I know of is there more hospitality amongst the 
higher orders of society. Kirk White, in his Letters, 
is not very complimentary either to 

BEDMAKERS OR GYPS. 

The latter are called scouts in Oxford, and their 
office borders on what is generally understood by the 
word valet. The term Gyp is well applied from 
Tims, a vulture, they being, in the broadest sense of 
the word, addicted to prey, and not over-scrupulous 
at both picking and stealing, in spite of the Deca- 
logue. I had one evening had a wine party, during 
the warm season of the year ; we drank freely, and 
two of the party taking possession of my bed, I con- 
tented myself with the sofa. About six in the morn- 
ing the Gyp came into the room to collect boots, &c. 
and either not seeing me, or fancying I slept (the 
wine being left on the table), he very coolly filled 
himself a glass, which he lost no time in raising to 
his lips, but ere he had swallowed a drop, having 
watched his motions, I ivhistled (significant of re- 
cognition), and down went the wine, glass and all, 
and out bolted our gyp, who actually blushed the 



170 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

next time lie saw me. Another anecdote touching 
lodging-house keepers, I will head 

DROPS OF BRANDY. 

A certain mistress of a lodging-house, in Green- 
street, Cambridge, where several students had rooms, 
having a propensity, not for the ethereal charms of the 
music so called, but for the invigorating liquor itself, 
had a habit, with the assistance of what is called a 
screw-driver, but which might more aptly be termed 
a screw-drawer, of opening cupboard doors without 
resorting to the ordinary use of a key. By this 
means she had one day abstracted a bottle of brandy 
from the store of one of the students (now a barrister 
of some practice and standing), with which,, the 
better to consume it in undisturbed dignity, she 
retired to the temple of the goddess Cloacina. She 
had been missed for some time, and search was made, 
when she was found half seas over, as they say, 
with the remnant of the bottle still grasped in her 
hand, which she had plied so often to her mouth, 
that she was unable to lift her hand so high, or 
indeed to rise from her seditious posture. Upon 
this scene a caricature of the first water was sketched, 
and circulated by some Cambridge wag: another 
threw off the following Epigrammatic Conun : 

Why is my Dalia like a rose ? 
Perhaps, you'll say, because her breath 
Is sweeter than the flowers of earth : 
No — odious thought — it is, her nose 
Is redder than the reddest rose ; 
Which she has long been very handy 
At colouring with drops of brandy. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 171 

Another head of a lodging-house is a notorious 
member of what in Cambridge is called — 

THE DIRTY-SHIRT CLUB. 

This is a society that has existed in the town of 
Cambridge for ages, whose functions consist in wear- 
ing the linen of the students who lodge in their houses 
after it has been cast off for the laundress. This 
same individual, however, had a taste for higher 
game, and one of the students, who had rooms in his 
house, being called to London for a few days, re- 
turning rather unexpectedly, actually found mine 
host at the head of the table, in his sitting-room, 
surrounded by some twenty snobs, his friends. Our 
gownsman very properly resented his impertinence, 
took him by the collar and waist, and, in the lan- 
guage of that fine old song, goose-a-goose-a-gander, 
" threw him down stairs.' 3 The rest of the party 
prudently followed at this hint, leaving the table 
covered with the remains of sundry bottles of wine 
and a rich dessert. Thus the affair terminated at 
that time : but our gownsman being a man of fortune, 
and one of those accustomed, therefore, to treat his 
brother students, his friends, sumptuously too, went 
two or three days after, to his fruiterer's, to order 

DESSERT FOR TWENTY. 

" The same as you had on Wednesday ? " inquired 
the fruiterer. " On Wednesday ! " he exclaimed with 
astonishment, — " I had no dessert on Wednesday ! " 

" Oh, yes, sir," was the rejoinder, u Mr. 

himself, ordered it for you, and, as I before said, for 



172 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

twenty ! " The whole matter was soon understood 
to be, that the lodging-house keeper had actually 
done him the honour to give his brother snobs, of 
the dirty shirt fraternity, an invite and sumptuous 
entertainment at his expense ! Of course, he did 
not remain in the house of such & free-and-easy gent. 
I name the fact, as a recent occurrence, and 

A HINT FOR GOWNSMEN. 

But this is not the only way in which they are 
fleeced : the minor articles of grocery are easily ap- 
propriated : nay, not only easily appropriated, but a 
duplicate order is occasionally deliveredybr the bene- 
fit of the house. Some tradesmen have made 

MARVELLOUS STRIDES ON THE ROAD TO WEALTH, 

From various causes. I remember one man who, in 
six years, beginning life at the very beginning, saved 
enough to retire upon an independence for the rest 
of his life. Did he chalk double ? I answer not. 
But students should look to these things. At St. 
John's College, Cambridge, the tutors have adopted 
an excellent plan by which, with ordinary diligence, 
cheats may be detected : they oblige the tradesmen 
to furnish them with duplicates of their bills against 
the students, one of which is handed to the latter, 
and any error pointed out, they will be forced to 
rectify. 

ANOTHER SPECIES OF FRAUD 

Is a trick tradesmen have, in the Universities, of 
persuading students to get into their debt, actually 



NUTS TO CRACK. 173 

pressing their wares upon them, and then, when 
their books show sufficient reason, forsooth, they make 
a mock assignment of their affairs over to their credi- 
tors, and some pettifogging attorney addresses the 
unlucky debtors with an intimation, that, unless the 
account is forthwith paid, together with the expenses 
of the application, further proceedings will be taken ! 
though the wily tradesman has assured the pur- 
chaser of his articles that credit would run to any 
length he pleased: and so it does, and no longer. 
Such fellows should be marked and cut ! It is but 
justice to add, however, that these observations do 
not apply to that respectable class of tradesmen, of 
whom the student should purchase his necessaries. 
The motto of every student, notwithstanding, who 
is desirous of not injuring his future prospects in 
life, by too profuse an expenditure, should be 
' c fugies Uticam," — keep out of debt ! 



THE SOURCE OF DR. PARR'S ELOQUENCE. 

Some of Dr. Parr's hearers, struck with a remark- 
able passage in his sermon, asked him " Whether he 
had read it from his book ? " " Oh, no," said he, 
" it was the light of nature suddenly flashing upon 
me/' He once called a clergyman a fool. The 
divine, indignant, threatened to complain to the 
Bishop. " Do so," was the reply, " and my Lord 
Bishop will confirm you." 

To the same wit, when a student at Emmanuel 
College, is attributed the celebrated — 



174 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



ADDRESS TO HIS TEA-CHEST, 

u Tu doces" (thou lea-chest /) Others give the 
paternity to Lord Erskine, when a Fellow Commoner 
of Trinity College, Cambridge ; n'importe, they were 
friends. 

AS A SPICE OF THEIR JOINT VANITY, 

It is related of them, that one day, sipping their wine 
together, the Doctor exclaimed, " Should you give 
me an opportunity, Erskine, I promise myself the 
pleasure of writing your epitaph/' " Sir," was the 
reply, " it's a temptation to commit suicide/' On 
another occasion more than one authority concur in 
the Doctor's thus 

ASSURING HIMSELF A PLACE AMONGST THE 
GREEK SCHOLARS OF HIS DAY. 

" Porson, sir, is the first, always the first; we all 
yield to him. Burney is the third. Who is the 
second, I leave you to guess." 

ANOTHER SPICE OF HIS VANITY 

Peeped out on his one night being seated in the 
side gallery at the House of Commons, with the late 
Sir James Mackintosh, &c, where he could see and 
be seen by the members of the opposition, his friends. 
The debate was one of great importance. Fox at 
length rose, and as he proceeded in his address, the 
Doctor grew more and more animated, till at length 
he rose as if with the intention of speaking. He 



NUTS TO CRACK. 175 

was reminded of the impropriety, and immediately 
sat down. After Fox had concluded, he exclaimed : 
" Had I followed any other profession, I might have 
been sitting by the side of that illustrious statesman ; 
I should have had all his powers of argument, — all 
Erskine's eloquence, — and all Hargrave's law." He 
had one day been arguing and disagreeing with a 
lady, who said, " Well, Dr. Parr, 

I STILL MAINTAIN MY OPINION." 

" Madam/' he rejoined, " you may, if you please, 
retain your opinion: but you cannot maintain it." 
Another lady once opposing his opinions with more 
pertinacity than cogency of reasoning, concluded 
with the observation, " You know, Doctor, 

IT IS THE PRIVILEGE OF WOMEN TO TALK 

NONSENSE." 

" No, madam," he replied, " it is not their privilege, 
but their infirmity. Ducks would walk, if they 
could, but nature suffers them only to waddle." 

After some persons, at a party where the Doctor 
made one, had expressed their regret that he had 
not written more, or something more worthy of his 
fame, a young scholar somewhat pertly called out to 
him, " Suppose, Dr. Parr, you and I were to write a 
book together ! " " Young man," exclaimed the 
chafed lion, " if all were to be written in that book 
which I do know, and which you do not know, it 
would be a very large book indeed." The following 
are given by Field as his 



176 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

REPROOFS OF IGNORANCE TALKING WITH THE 
CONFIDENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

He was once insisting on the importance of disci- 
pline, established by a wise system, and enforced with 
a steady hand, in schools, in colleges, in the navy, in 
the army; when he was somewhat suddenly and 
rudely taken up by a young officer who had just 
received his commission, and was not a little proud 
of his " blushing honours." " What, sir," said he, 
addressing the Doctor, " do you mean to apply that 
word discipline to the officers of the army ? It may 
be well enough for the privates" " Yes, sir, I do," 
replied the Doctor, sternly : " It is discipline makes 
the scholar, it is discipline makes the soldier, it is 
discipline makes the gentleman, and the want of 
discipline has made you what you are." 

BEING MUCH ANNOYED 

By the pert remarks of another tyro, — "Sir," said 
he, " your tongue goes to work before your brain ; 
and when your brain does work, it generates nothing 
but error and absurdity." The maxim of men of 
experience, the Doctor might have added, is, "to 
think twice before they act once." To a third per- 
son, of bold and forward but ill-supported pretensions, 

he said, " B , you have read little, thought less, 

and know nothing" 

HE MATCHED A TRICK OF THE DEVIL. 

Like the more celebrated scholars and divines, 
Clarke, Paley, Markland, &c, he would join an 



NUTS TO CRACK. 177 

evening party at cards, always preferring the old 
English game of whist, and resolutely adhering to 
his early determination of never playing for more 
than a nominal stake. Being once, however, in- 
duced to break through it, and play with the late 
learned Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Watson, for a 
shilling, which he won, after pushing it carefully to 
the bottom of his pocket and placing his hand upon 
it, with a kind of mock solemnity, he said, ec There, 
my lord Bishop, this is a trick of the devil ; but I'll 
match him ; so now, if you please, we will play for a 
fenny" and this was ever after the amount of his 
stake, though he was not the less ardent in pursuit 
of success, or less joyous on winning his rubber. 
Like our great moralist, Johnson, he had an aversion 
to punning, saying, it exposed the poverty of a lan- 
guage. Yet he perpetrated the following 

THREE CLASSICAL PUNS : 

One day N reaching a book from a shelf in his library, 
two others came tumbling down, including a volume 
of Hume, upon which fell a critical work of Lambert 
Bos : " See what has happened," exclaimed the 
Doctor, " procumbit humi bos." At another time, 
too strong a current of air being let into the room 
where he was sitting, suffering under the effects of a 
slight cold, a Stop ! stop ! " said he, " this is too 
much ; at present I am only par levibus ventis" 
When he was solicited to subscribe to Dr. Busby's 
translation of Lucretius, published at a high price, 
he declined doing so, by observing, at the proposed 
cost it would indeed be " Lucretius earns" 



178 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



HIS LAW ACT AT CAMBRIDGE. 

On proceeding to the degree of LL.D. at Cam- 
bridge, in 1781, Dr. Parr delivered "in the law 
schools,, before crowded audiences/' says Field, "two 
theses, of which the subject of the first was, Hares 
ex delicto defunct i non tenetur ; and of the second, 
Jus interpretandi leges privatis, perinde ac principi, 
constat. In the former of these, after having offered 
a tribute of due respect to the memory of the late 
Hon. Charles Yorke (the Lord Chancellor), he stre- 
nuously opposed the doctrine of that celebrated 
lawyer, laid down in his book upon 'the law of 
forfeiture ;' and denied the authority of those pas- 
sages which were quoted from the correspondence 
of Cicero and Brutus ; because, as he affirmed, after 
that learned and sagacious (Cambridge) critic, 
Markland (in his Remarks on the Epistles of those 
two Romans), the correspondence itself is not 
genuine. The same liberal and enlightened views 
of the natural and social rights of man pervaded the 
latter as well as the former thesis ; and in both 
were displayed such strength of reasoning and power 
of language, such accurate knowledge of historical 
facts and such clear comprehension of legal princi- 
ples bearing on the questions, that the whole 
audience listened with fixed and delighted attention. 
The Professor of Law himself, Dr. Hallifax, after- 
wards Bishop of St. Asaph, was so struck with the 
uncommon excellence of these compositions, as to 
make it his particular request that they should be 



NUTS TO CRACK. 179 

given to the public; but with which request Dr. 
Parr could not be persuaded to comply. 



" THERE IS A PLEASANT STORY 

Reported of the Doctor/' says Barker, in his Par- 
riana, when on a visit to Dr. Farmer, at Emanuel 
Lodge. He had made free in discourse with some 
of the Fellow Commoners in the Combination-room, 
who, not being able to cope with him, resolved to 
take vengeance in their own way ; they took his best 
wig, and thrust it into his boot : this indispensable 
appendage of dress was soon called for, but could 
nowhere be found, till the Doctor, preparing for his 
departure, and proceeding to put on his boots, found 
one of them pre-occupied, and putting in his hand, 
drew forth the wig with a loud shout — perhaps 
ei>pi]Ka. : ' ci When the late Dr. Watson," adds the 
same writer, " presided in the divinity- schools, at 

AN ACT KEPT BY DR. MILXER, 

The reputation of whose great learning and ability 
caused the place to be filled with the senior and junior 
members of the University, one of the opponents 
was the late Dr. Coulthurst, and the debate was 
carried on with great vigour and spirit. When this 
opponent had gone through his arguments, the Pro- 
fessor rose, as usual, from his throne, and, taking off 
his cap, cried out — 

1 Arcades ambo 
Et cantare pares, et respondere'parati.' 

n2 



180 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

We juniors, who happened to be present, were 
much pleased with the application. Soon after, 
being in the Doctor's company, I mentioned how 
much we were entertained with the whole scene, 
particularly with the close : he smiled, and said, 
( It is Warburton's/ where I soon after found it." 



EPIGRAM 



On a Cambridge beauty, daughter of an Alderman, 
made by the Rev. Hans De Veil, son of Sir Thomas 
De Veil, and a Cantab : — 

" Is Molly Fowle immortal? — No. 
Yes, but she is — I'll prove her so : 
She's fifteen now, and was, I know, 
Fifteen full fifteen years ago." 



NOVEL REVENGE. 

Sir John Heathcote, a Cantab, and lessee of Lin- 
coln church, being refused a renewal of the same 
on his own terms, by the Prebend, Dr. Cobden, of 
St. John's College, Cambridge, upon accepting the 
Prebend's terms, appointed his late Majesty, then 
Prince of Wales, to be one of 9 the Mves included in 
the lease, observing, " I will nominate one for whom 
the dog shall be obliged to pray in the day-time, 
wishing him dead at night." 



THEY TAKE THEM AS THEY COME. 

A person might very well conclude, from the 
observations of the enemies of our English Universi- 



NUTS TO CRACK. 181 

ties, that the governors of them had the power of 
selecting the youth who are to graduate at them, or 
that, of necessity, all men bred at either Oxford or 
Cambridge ought to be alike distinguished for supe- 
rior virtue and forbearance, great learning, and great 
talents. They forget, that they must take them as 
they come, like the boy in the anecdote. " So you 
are picking them out, my lad," said a Cantab to a 
youth, scratching his head in the street. " No," 
said the arch-rogue, " I takes 'em as they come." 
Just so do the authorities at Oxford and Cambridge. 
I knew a son of Granta, and eke, too, 

THE DARLING SON OF HIS MOTHER, 

Whose mind, at twenty, was a chaos, and must from 
his birth have been, not as Locke would have sup- 
posed, a sheet of white paper, ready to receive im- 
pressions, but one smeared and useless. Yet Solomon 
in all his glory was not half so wise as was this scion 
in his mother's opinion. She, therefore, brought 
him to Cambridge, and having introduced him to 
the amiable tutor of St. John's College, smirkingly 
asked him, Ci If he thought her darling would be 
senior wrangler ?" " I don't know, madam," was 
his reply, in his short quick manner of speaking, 
pulling up a certain portion of his dress, in the 
wearing of which he resembled Sir Charles Wetherell, 
" J. don't know, madam ; that remains to be seen." 
Poor fellow, he never could get a degree, nor (after 
having been removed from Cambridge to the Poll- 
technique School at Paris, for a year or two) could 
he ever get over the Pons Asinorum (as we Cantata 



182 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

term the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid). 
Another 

MISCALCULATING MMMA, 

And they are sure to miscalculate whenever they 
intermeddle with such matters, declined entering 
her two sons at Cambridge in the same year, that, 
as she said, " They might not stand in each other's 
way.*' Id est, they were to be both senior wranglers. 
They, however, never caught sight of the goal. I 
recollect, on one occasion, the second son being 
floored in his college mathematical examination. He 
was said to have afterwards carried home the paper 
(containing twenty- two difficult geometrical and 
other problems), when one of his sisters snatched it 
out of his hand, exclaiming, " Give it to me/* and, 
without the slightest hesitation (in good Cambridge 
phrase), she ee floored " the whole of them, to his 
dismay. This lady was one of a bevy of ten beauties 
whom their mamma compassionately brought to 
Cambridge to dance with the young gentlemen of 
the University at her parties, and after so officiating 
for some three or four years, notwithstanding they 
were all Blues, and had corresponding names, from 
Britannia to Boadicea, the Cantabs suffered them 
all to depart spinsters. But Papas also sometimes 
overrate their sons' talents and virtues. A gentle- 
man, a few years since, on 

PRESENTING HIS FAVORITE SON 

To the sub-rector of a certain College in Oxford, as 
a new member, did so with the observation, " Sir, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 183 

he is modest, diffident, and clever, and will be an 
example to the whole College/* "I am glad of it/' 
was the reply, " we want such men, and I am 
honoured, sir, by your bringing him here." Papa 
made his exit, well pleased with our Welshman's 
hospitality, for of that country our Sub -Rector, as 
well as the gentleman in question was. The former, 
too, had been a chaplain in Lord Nelson's fleet, in 
his younger days, and was not over orthodox in his 
language, when irritated, though a man with a 
better heart it would have puzzled the Grecian sage 
to have traced out by candlelight. A month had 
scarcely passed over, when Papa, having occasion to 
pass through Oxon, called on the Sub- Rector, of 
course, and naturally inquired, " How his son de- 
meaned himself?" a You told me, sir," said the 
Sub- Rector, in a pet, and a speech such as the 
quarter-deck of a man of war had schooled him in ; 
cc you told me, sir, that your son was modest, but 
d— n his modesty ! you told me, sir, he was diffident, 
but d — n his diffidence ! you told me, sir, he was 
clever ; he's the greatest dunce of the whole society ! 
you told me, sir, he would prove an example to the 
whole college : but I tell you, sir, that he is neither 
modest, diffident, nor clever, and in three weeks," 
added the Sub-Rector, raising his voice to a becom- 
ing pitch, " he has ruined half the College by his 
example ! " We can scarcely do better than add to 
this, by way of tail-piece, from that loyal Oxford 
scourge Terrce Filius (ed. 1726) — (to be read, " cum 
grano," and some allowance for the excited character 
of the times in which it was written) — 



184 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



ITER ACADEMICUM ; OR, THE GENTLEMAN 
COMMONERS MATRICULATION. 

Being of age to play the fool, 
With muekle glee I left our school 

At Hoxton; 
And, mounted on an easy pad, 
Rode with my mother and my dad 

To Oxon. 
Conceited of my parts and knowledge, 
They entered me into a college 

Ibidem. 
The master took me first aside, 
Showed me a scrawl — I read, and cried 

Do Fidem. 
Gravely he took me by the fist, 
And wished me well — we next request 

A tutor. 
He recommends a staunch one, who 
In Perkins 1 cause had been his Co- 

Adjutor. 
To see this precious stick of wood, 
I went (for so they deemed it good) 

In fear, Sir ; 
And found him swallowing loyalty, 
Six deep his bumpers, which to me 

Seemed queer, Sir. 
He bade me sit and take my glass, 
I answered, looking like an ass, 

I can't, Sir. 
Not drink ! — You don't come here to pray ! 
The merry mortal said, by way 

Of answer. 
To pray, Sir ! No, my lad; 'tis welM 
Come, here's our friend Sacheverell ; 

Here's Trappy ! 



NUTS TO CRACK. 185 

Here's Ormond ! Marr ! in short, so many 
Traitors we drank, it made my crani- 
um nappy. 
And now, the company dismissed, 
With this same sociable Priest, 

Or Fellow, 
I sallied forth to deck my back 
With loads of stuff, and gown of black 

Prunello. 
My back equipt, it was not fair 
My head should 'scape, and so, as square 

As chess-board, 
A cap I bought, my scull to screen, 
Of cloth without, and all within 

Of paste-board. 
When metamorphosed in attire, 
More like a parson than a squire 

They'd dressed me. 
I took my leave, with many a tear, 
Of John, our man, and parents dear, 

Who blest me. 
The master said they might believe him, 
So righteously (the Lord forgive him !) 

He'd govern. 
He'd show me the extremest love, 
Provided that I did not prove 

Too stubborn. 
So far so good ; but now fresh fees 
Began (for so the custom is) 

My ruin. 
Fresh fees ! with drink they knock you down ; 
You spoil your clothes, and your new gown 

You sp — in. 
I scarce had slept — at six — tan tin 
The bell goes — servitor comes in — 

Gives warning. 
I wished the scoundrel at old Nick ; 
I puked, and went to prayers d — d sick 

That morning. 



186 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

One who could come half drunk to prayer 

They saw was entered, and could swear 

At random ; 

Would bind himself, as they had done, 

To statutes, tho' he could not un- 
derstand 'em. 

Built in the form of pigeon-pye, 

A house* there is for rooks to lie (*Theatre) 

And roost in. 

Their laws, their articles of grace, 

Forty, I think, save half a brace, 

Was willing 

To swear to ; swore, engaged my soul, 

And paid the swearing broker whole 

Ten shilling. 

Full half a pound I paid him down, 

To live in the most p — d town 

O' th' nation : 

May it ten thousand cost Lord Phyz, 

For never forwarding his vis- 
itation. 



A STORY 



Is told, and, " in the days that are gone/' is not at 
all improbable, that a youth being brought to Oxon, 
after he had paid the Tutor and other the several 
College and University foes, was told he must sub- 
scribe to the Thirty-nine Articles ; "with all my 
heart/' said our freshman, u pray how much is it ? " 



FRESHMEN OFTEN AFFORD MIRTH 

To both tutors, scholars, scouts, gyps, and others, by 
their blunders. They will not unfrequently, upon 



NUTS TO CRACK. 187 

the first tingle of the college bell (though it always 
rings a quarter of an hour, by way of warning, on 
ordinary occasions, and half an hour on saints' days, 
in Cambridge), hurry off to hall or chapel, with their 
gowns the wrong side outwards, or, their caps 
reversed, walk unconsciously along with the hind 
part before, as I once heard a soph observe, " the 
peak smelling thunder." They are also very apt to 
mistake characters and functionaries : — I have seen 
a freshman cap the college-butler, taking him for 
bursar at least. The persons to be so complimented 
are the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Proctors, 
the head of your college, and your tutors. When 
the late Bishop Mansell was Vice- Chancellor of 
Cambridge, he one day met two freshmen in Trump - 
iugton- street, who passed him unheeded. The 
Bishop was not a man to 'bate an iota of his due, 
and stopped them and asked, " If they knew he was 
the Vice- Chancellor ? " They blushingly replied, 
they did not, and begged his pardon for omitting to 
cap him, observing they were freshmen. ec How 
long have you been in Cambridge ? " asked the witty 
Bishop. u Only eight days," was the reply. " In 
that case I must excuse you ; puppies never see till 
they are nine days old." 



ANOTHER FRESHMAN 



Was unconsciously walking beyond the University 
church, on a Sunday morning, which (at both Oxford 
and Cambridge) he would have been expected to 
attend, when he was met by the Master of St. John's 



188 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

College, Dr. Wood, who, by way of a mild rebuke, 
stopped him and asked him, " If the way he was 
going led to St. Mary's church ? " rc Oh, no, sir," 
said he, with most lamb-like innocence, " this is the 
way," pointing in the opposite direction. "Keep 
straight on, you can't miss it." The Doctor, how- 
ever, having fully explained himself, preferred taking 
him as a guide. 



WE MUST DO SOMETHING FOR THE POOR LOST 
YOUNG MAN. 

Lords Stowel and Eldon both studied at Trinity 
College, Oxford, with success, and, it is well known, 
there laid the foundation of that fame, which, from 
the humble rank of the sons of a Newcastle coal- 
fitter, raised them to the highest legal stations and 
the English peerage. The former first graduated, 
and was elected a Fellow and Tutor of All Soul's 
College (where he had the late Lord Tenterden for 
a pupil) and became Camden Professor. The latter 
afterwards graduated with a success that would have 
ensured him a fellowship and other University dis- 
tinctions, but visiting his native place soon after he 
took A.B. he fell in love with Miss Surtees (the 
present Lady Eldon) daughter of a then rich banker, 
in Newcastle, who returned his affection, and they 
became man and wife. Her family were indignant, 
and refused to be reconciled to the young pair, be- 
cause the lady had, as the phrase ran, " married 
below her station." Mr. Scott, the father, was as 
much offended at the step his &on had taken, which 



NUTS TO CRACK. 189 

at once shut him out from the chance of a fellowship, 
and refused them his countenance. In this dilemma 
the new married pair sought the friendship of Mr. 
William Scott (now Lord Stowell) at Oxford. His 
heart, cast in a softer mould, readily forgave them, 
— his amiable nature would not have permitted 
him to do otherwise. He received them with a 
brotherly affection, pitied rather than condemned 
them, and is said to have observed to some Oxford 
friends, %i We must do something for the poor lost 
young man ! *' What a lesson is there not read to 
mankind in the result ! A harsher course might 
have led to ruin — the milder one was the stepping- 
stone to the woolsack and a peerage. 



LIKE O' WHISSOXSET CHURCH. 

A Cantab visited some friends in the neighbour- 
hood of Whissonsett, near Fakenham, Norfolk, 
during the life of the, late rector of that parish, who 
was then nearly ninety, and but little capable of 
attending to his duty, but having married a young 
wife, she would not allow him a curate, but every 
Sunday drove him from Fakenham to the church. 
In short he was hen-pecked. His clerk kept the 
village public-house, and was not over-attentive to 
his duties. Our Cantab accompanied his friends to 
church at the usual time, arriving at which they 
found doors close ; neither " Vicar or Moses" had 
arrived, nor did they appear till half an hour after. 



190 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Under these circumstances our Cantab threw off the 
following epigram : 

Like o' Whissonsett Church 
In vain you'll search, 

The Lord be thanked for't : 
The parson is old, 
His wife's a scold, 

And the clerk sells beer by the quart. 

The people who go 
Are but so so, 

And but so so are the singers ; 
They roar in our ears 
Like northern bears, 

And the devil take the ringers. 



CUSTOM, WHIM, FASHION, AND CAPRICE, 

Have been pretty nearly as arbitrary in our univer- 
sities as with the rest of the world. When John 
Goslin was Vice-Chancellor^ he is said to have made it 

A HEAVY FINE TO APPEAR IN BOOTS. 

A student, however, undertook, for a small bet, to 
visit him in them, and, to appease his wrath, he 
desired the doctor's advice for an hereditary numbness 
in his legs. So far was the Vice- Chancellor from 
expressing any anger, that he pitied him, and he won 
his wager. Another vice-chancellor is said to have 
issued his mandate for all members in statu pupil- 
lari, to appear in 

YELLOW STOCKINGS. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 191 

The following singular order, as to dress and the 
excess thereof, was issued by the great statesman, 
Cecil, Lord Burleigh, as chancellor of the University 
of Cambridge, in the days of Elizabeth, which is 
preserved in the Liber Niger, or Black-book, extant 
in the Cambridge University Library. The paper 
is dated " from my house in Strand, this seventhe of 
May, 1588," and runs thus: — 1. "That no hat be 
worne of anie graduate or scholler within the said 
universitie (except it shall be when he shall journey 
owte of the towne, or excepte in the time of his sick- 
ness). All graduates were to weare square caps of 
clothe ; and schollers, not graduates, round cloth 
caps, saving that it may be lawful for the sonnes of 
noblemen, or the sonnes and heirs of knights, to 
weare round caps of velvet, but no hats." 

2. " All graduates shall weare abroade in the uni- 
versitie going owte of his colledg, a gowne and a 
hoode of cloth, according to the order of his degree. 
Provided that it shall be lawful for everie D. D., and 
for the Mr. of anie coll. to weare a sarcenet tippet 
of velvet, according to the anciente customes of this 
realme, and of the saide universitie. The whiche 
gowne, tippet, and square caps, the saide Drs. and 
heads shall be likewise bound to weare, when they 
shall resorte eyther to the courte, or to the citie of 
London." 

3. " And that the excesse of shirt bands and 
ruffles, exceeding an ynche and halfe (saving the 
sonnes of noblemen), the fashion and colour other 
than white, be avoided presentlie ; and no scholler, 
or fellowe of the foundation of anie house of learn- 
inge, do weare eyther in the universitie or without, 



192 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

&c, anie hose, stockings., dublets, jackets, crates, 
or jerknees, or anie other kynde of garment, of 
velvet, satin, or silk, or in the facing of the 
the same shall have above a \ of a yard of silke, or 
shall use anie other light kynde of colour, or cuts, or 
gards, of fashion, the which shall be forbidden by 
the Chancellor," &c. 

4th. " And that no sc holler doe weare anie long 
lockes of hair vppon his head, but that he be notted, 
pouled, or rounded, after the accustomed manner of 
the gravest schollers of the saide universitie." The 
penalty for every offence against these several orders 
being six shillings and eightpence : the sum in which 
offenders are mulcted in the present day. 

THE FASHION OF THE HAIR 

Has been not less varied, or less subject to animadver- 
sion, than the dress of the members of the universities. 
The fashion of wearing long hair, so peculiar in the 
reign of Charles II., was called the Apollo. _ His 
Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the present 
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, " was an 
Apollo" during the whole of his residence at Tri- 
nity College, says the Gradus ad Cant. Indeed 
his royal highness, who was noted for his personal 
beauty at that time, was " the last in Cambridge 
who wore his hair after that fashion." " I can 
remember," says the pious Archbishop Tillotson, as 
cited by the above writer, discoursing on this head, 
viz. of hair ! " since the wearing the hair below the 
ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude ; 
and when ministers generally, whatever their text 



NUTS TO CRACK. 193 

was, did either find, or make, occasion to reprove 
the great sin of long hair ; and if they saw any one 
in the congregation guilty in that kind., they would 
point him out particularly, and let fly at him with 
great zeal." And we can remember, since wearing 
the hair cropt, i. e. above the ears, was looked upon, 
though not as "a sin," yet, as a very vulgar and 
raffish sort of a thing; and when the doers of news- 
papers exhausted all their wit in endeavouring to 
rally the new-raised corps of crops, regardless of the 
late noble Duke (of Bedford) who headed them ; 
and, when the rude rank-scented rabble, if they saw 
any one in the streets, whether time or the tonsor 
had thinned his flowing hair, they would point him 
out particularly and " let fly at him" as the arch- 
bishop says, till not a shaft of ridicule remained ! 
The tax upon hair-powder has now, however, pro- 
duced all over the country very plentiful crops. 
Charles II., who, as his worthy friend the Earl of 
Rochester, remarked, 

never said a foolish thing, 

Nor ever did a wise one, 

sent a letter to the University of Cambridge, for- 
bidding the members to wear periwigs, smoke 
tobacco, and read their sermons ! ! It is needless to 
remark, that tobacco has not yet made its exit in 
fumo, and that periwigs still continue to adorn 
" the heads of houses." Till the present 
all-prevailing, all-accom?nodating fashion of crops 
became general in the university, no young man 
presumed to dine in hall till he had previously 

o 



194 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

received a handsome trimming from the hair- dresser 
(one of which calling was a special appointment to 
each college). The following inimitable imitation of 
" The Bard " of Gray, is ascribed to the pen of the 
late Lord Erskine, when a fellow- commoner of 
Trinity College, Cambridge. Having been disap- 
pointed of the attendance of his college- barber, he was 
compelled to forego his commons in hall. But deter- 
mining to have his revenge, and give his hair- 
dresser a good dressing, he sat down and penned the 
following " Fragment of a Pindaric Ode," wherein, 
" in imitation of the despairing Bard, of Gray, who 
prophesied the destruction of King Edward's race, he 
poured forth his curses upon the whole race of bar- 
bers, predicting their ruin in the simplicity of a 
future generation." 

I. 

Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe ! 

Confusion on thy frizzing wait ; 
Hadst thou the only comb below, 

Thou never more shouldst touch my pate. 
Club, nor queue, nor twisted tail, 
Nor e'en thy chatt'ring, barber ! shall avail 
To save thy horse-whipp'd back from daily fears, 
From Cantab' s curse, from Cantab' s tears ! 
Such were the sounds that o'er the powder' d pride 

Of Coe the barber scattered wild dismay, 
As down the steep of Jackson's slippery lane, 

He wound with puffing march his toilsome, tardy way. 

II. 

In a room where Cambridge town 

Frowns o'er the kennel's stinking flood, 
Rob'd in a flannel powd'ring gown, 

With haggard eyes poor Erskine stood ; 



NUTS TO CRACK. 

(Long his beard and blouzy hair 

Stream' d like an old wig to the troubled air ;) 

And with clung guts, and face than razor thinner, 

Swore the loud sorrows of his dinner. 

Hark ! how each striking clock and tolling bell, 

With awful sounds, the hour of eating tell I 

O'er thee, oh Coe I their dreadful notes they wave. 

Soon shall such sounds proclaim thy yawning grave ; 

Vocal in vain, through all this ling' ring day, 

The grace already said, the plates all swept away. 

III. 

Cold is Beau * * tongue, 

That soothed each virgin's pain ; 
Bright perfumed M * * has cropp'd his head : 

Almacks ! you moan in vain. 
Each youth whose high toupee 

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-cropt head. 
In humble Tyburn-top we see ; 

Esplashed with dirt and sun-burnt face ; 

Far on before the ladies mend their paec, 
The Macaroni sneers, and will not see. 
Dear lost companions of the coxcomb's art. 

Dear as a turkey to these famished eyes, 
Dear as the ruddy port which warms my heart. 

Ye sunk amidst the fainting Misses' cries. 
No more I weep — they do not sleep : 

At yonder ball a slovenly band, 
I see them sit, they linger yet, 

Avengers of fair Nature's hand ; 
With me in dreadful resolution join, 
To Crop with one accord, and starve their cursed line. 

IV. 

Weave the warp, and weave the woof, 

The winding-sheet of barber's race ; 
Give ample room, and verge enough, 

Their lengthened lanthorn jaws to trace. 
o 2 



196 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Mark the year, and mark the night, 

When all their shops shall echo with affright ; 

Loud screams shall through St. James's turrets ring, 

To see, like Eton boy, the king ! 

Puppies of France, with unrelenting paws, 

That crape the foretops of our aching heads ; 
No longer England owns thy fribblish laws, 

No more her folly Gallia's vermin feeds. 
They wait at Dover for the first fair wind, 
Soup -meagre in the van, and snuff roast -beef behind. 



Mighty barbers, mighty lords, 

Low on a greasy bench they lie ! 

No pitying heart or purse affords 

A sixpence for a mutton-pye ! 
Is the mealy 'prentice fled ? 
Poor Coe is gone, all supperless to bed. 
The swarm that in thy shop each morning sat, 
Comb their lank hair on forehead flat : 
Fair laughs the morn, when all the world are beaux, 

While vainly strutting through a silly land, 
In foppish train the puppy barber goes ; 

Lace on his shirt, and money at command, 
Regardless of the skulking bailiff's sway, 
That, hid in some dark court, expects his evening prey. 



VI. 

The porter-mug fill high, 

Baked curls and locks prepare ; 
Reft of our heads, they yet by wigs may live, 

Close by the greasy chair 
Fell thirst and famine lie, 
No more to art will beauteous nature give. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 1 M7 

Heard ye the gang of Fielding say, 
Sir John *, at last we've found their haunt, 
To desperation driv'n by hungry want, 

Thro' the crammed laughing Pit they steal their way. 
Ye tow'rs of Newgate ! London's lasting shame, 

By many a foul and midnight murder fed, 
Revere poor Mr. Coe, the blacksmith's f fame, 

And spare the grinning barber's chuckle head. 

VII. 

Rascals ! we tread thee under foot, 

(Weave we the woof, the thread is spun) ; 
Our beards we pull out by the root ; 

(The web is wove, your work is done). 
" Stay, oh, stay! nor thus forlorn 
Leave me uncurl' d, un dinner' d, here to mourn." 
Thro' the broad gate that leads to College Hall, 
They melt, they fly, they vanish all. 
But, oh ! what happy scenes of pure delight, 

Slow moving on their simple charms unrcll ! 
Ye rapt'rous visions ! spare my aching sight, 

Ye unborn beauties, crowd not on my soul ! 
No more our long-lost Coventry we wail : 
All hail, ye genuine forms ? fair nature's issue, hail! 

VIII. 

Not frizz' d and frittered, pinned and rolled, 

Sublime their artless locks they wear, 
And gorgeous dames, and judges old, 

Without their tetes and wigs appear. 



* Sir John Fielding, the late active police magistrate, 
-f- Coe*s father, the well-known blacksmith and alderman, now 
no more. 



198 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

In the midst a form divine, 

Her dress bespeaks the Pennsylvanian line ; 

Her port demure, her grave, religions face, 

Attempered sweet to virgin grace. 

What sylphs and spirits wanton through the air I 

What crowds of little angels round her play ! 
Hear from thy sepulchre, great Penn ! oh, hear ! 

A scene like this might animate thy clay. 
Simplicity now soaring as she sings, 
Waves in the eye of heaven her Quaker-coloured wings. 

IX. 

No more toupees are seen 

That mock at Alpine height, 
And queues, with many a yard of riband bound, 

All now are vanished quite. 
No tongs or torturing pin, 
But every head is trimmed quite snug around : 

Like boys of the cathedral choir, 
Curls, such as Adam wore, we wear ; 
Each simpler generation blooms more fair, 

Till all that's artificial expire. 
Vain puppy boy i think' st thou yon essenced cloud, 

Raised by thy puff, can vie with Nature's hue ? 
To-morrow see the variegated crowd 

With ringlets shining like the morning dew. 
Enough for me : with joy I see 

The different dooms our fates assign ; 
Be thine to love thy trade and starve, 

To wear what heaven bestowed be mine. 
He said, and headlong from the trap-stairs' height, 
Quick thro' the frozen street he ran in shabby plight. 

Whilst we are discussing the subject of hair, we 
ought not to forget that, according to Lyson's Environs 
of London, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 199 



THE FIRST PRELATE THAT WORE A WIG 

was Archbishop Tillotson. In the great dining-room 
of Lambeth Palace, he says, there are portraits of all 
the Archbishops, from Laud to the present time, in 
which may be observed the gradual change of the 
clerical habit, in the article of wigs. Archbishop 
Tillotson was the first prelate that wore a wig, which 
then was not unlike the natural hair, and worn 
without powder. In 1633, 21 James 1st, 

THE OXFORD SCHOLARS WERE PROHIBITED FROM 
WEARING BOOTS AND SPURS. 

" Care was taken," says Wood, " that formalities 
in public assemblies should be used, which, through 
negligence, were now, and sometime before, left off. 
That the wearing of boots and spurs also be pro- 
hibited, ' a fashion (as our Chancellor saith in his 
letters) rather befitting the liberties of the Inns 
of Court than the strictness of an academical life, 
which fashion is not only usurped by the younger 
sort, but by the Masters of Arts, who preposter- 
ously assume that part of the Doctor's formali- 
ties which adviseth them to ryde ad pradicandiim 
Evangelium, but in these days imply nothing else 
but animum deserendi studium." It was therefore 
ordered, " that no person that wears a gown wear 
boots ; if a graduate, he was to forfeit 2s. 6d. for the 



• 



300 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

first time of wearing them, after order was given to 
the contrary ; for the second time 5s., and so toties 
quoties. And if an 

UNDERGRADUATE, WHIPPING, 

Or other punishment, according to the will of the 
Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, for every time he wore 
them." And in 1608, when 

ARCHBISHOP BANCROFT 

Became Chancellor of Oxford, he decreed, amongst 
other things, " that indecency of attire be left off, 
and academical habits be used in public assemblies, 
being now more remissly looked to than in former 
times. Also, that no occasion of offence be given, 
long hair was not to be worn ; for whereas in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth few or none wore their 
hair longer than their ears (for they that did so were 
accounted by the graver and elder sort swaggerers 
and ruffians) , now 'twas common even among scholars, 
who were to be examples of modesty, gravity, and 
decency/' 



WAKEFIELD'S EPIGRAM ON THE FLYING BARBER 
OF CAMBRIDGE, 

Which his college friend, Dyer, has given in his_ 
Supplement, under the head " Seria Ludo," with 
the happy, original motto — 

With serious truths we mix a little fun, 
And now and then we treat you with a pun. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 201 

The subject of the epigram, he says (the original of 
which Mr. W. sent to a friend), " was Mr. Foster, 
formerly of Cambridge, who, on account of his rapidity 
in conversation, in walking, and more particularly in 
the exercise of his profession, was called (by the 
Cantabs) the Flying Barber. He was a great 
oddity, and gave birth to many a piece of fun in the 
university : — 

Tonsor ego : vultus radendo spumeus albet, 

Mappa subest, ardet culter, et unda tepet. 
Quam versat gladium cito dextra, novacula levis, 

Mox tua tarn celeri strinxerit ora manu. 
Cedite, Romani Tonsores, cedite Graii ; 

Tonsorem regio non habet ulla parem. 
Imberbes Grantam, barbati accedite Grantam ; 

Ilia polit mentes; et polit ilia genas. 



THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ. 

The men of St. John's College, Cambridge, like 
every other society in both Oxford and Cambridge, 
have their soubriquet. From what cause they ob- 
tained that of " Johnian Hogs" is yet scarcely set- 
tled, though much has been written thereon, extant 
in The Gradus ad Cant., Facetiae Cant., and The 
Cambridge Tart. It proved of some service, how- 
ever, to a wag of the society (and to them the merit 
of punning was conceded in the Spectator's time), 
in giving him an idea for a name for the elegant one- 
arched covered bridge which joins the superb Gothic 
court they have lately added to the fine old college, 
after the designs of Messrs. Hutchinson and Rickman 



202 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of Birmingham. The question was discussed at a wine 
party, and one proposed calling it the " Bridge of 
Sighs/' as it led to most of the tutors' and deans' 
rooms, from whom issued all impositions (punish- 
ments), &c. "1 have it!" exclaimed a wag, his 
eyes beaming brighter than his sparkling glass — " I 
have it ! Call it the Isthmus of Suez ! " Id est 
The Hogs Isthmus, from the Latin word sus, a sow, 
which makes suis in the genitive case, and proves 
our Johnian to be a punster worthy of his school. 



YOU ARE TO PRAY AND FIGHT, NOT TO DRINK 
FOR THE CHURCH. 

Mr. Jones, of Welwyn, relates, on the authority of 
Old Mr. Bunburry, of Brazen-nose College, that 
Bishop Kennett, when a young man, being one 
of the Oxford Pro- Proctors, and a very active one, 
about James the Second's reign, going his rounds one 
evening, found a company of gownsmen engaged on a 
drinking bout, to whom his then high church princi- 
ples were notorious (though he afterwards changed 
them, sided with Bishop Hoadley, and obtained the 
soubriquet of weather-cock Kennett), When he 
entered the room, he reprimanded them for keeping 
such late hours, especially over the bottle, rather 
than over their studies in their respective colleges, 
and ordered them to disperse. One in the company, 
who knew his political turn, addressed him with, 
iC Mr. Proctor, you will, I am sure, excuse us when 
I say, we were met to drink prosperity to the church, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 203 

to which you can have no objection. " "Sir," 
his answer, with a solemn air, u we are to pray for 
the church, and to Jight for the church, not to drink 
for the church." Upon which the company paid 
their reckoning and dispersed. There is a curious 
print in the Library of the Antiquarians, of an altar- 
piece, which the rector of Whitechapel, Dr. Walton, 
caused to be painted and put up in his church, 
representing Christ and his twelve apostles eating 
the passover, wherein Bishop Kennett (the " Trai- 
tor Dean/' as his siding with Hoadley caused him to 
be designated) is painted as Judas. 



SIGNS OF A GOOD APPETITE. 

When a late master of Richmond School, York- 
shire, came, a raw lad in his teens, to matriculate at 
Trinity College, Cambridge, he was invited to din- 
ner by his tutor, and happened to be seated opposite 
some boiled fowls, which, having just emptied a plate 
of his quantum of fish, he was requested to cant. 
He accordingly took one on his plate, but not being 
a carver, he leisjrely ate the whole of it, minus the 
bones, not at all disconcerted by the smiles of the 
other guests ; and when the cheese appeared, and his 
host cut a plateful for him to pass round the table, 
he coolly set to and eat the whole himself. He, 
notwithstanding, proved a good scholar, and dis- 
tinguished himself both in classics and mathematics, 
is now a canon residentiary of St. Paul's, and a very 
worthy divine, who has earned his reputation, pre- 
ferments and dignities by his merits only. 



204 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



A COLLEGE QUIZ. 

The following effusion of humour was the produc- 
tion of a very pleasant fellow, an Oxford scholar, 
now no more, who, says Angelo, in his Remi- 
niscences, " was a great favourite among his brother 
collegians," and a humourist : — " Lost £10 this 
morning, May 15, 1808, in Peck water Quadrangle, 
near No. 6. Any nobleman, gentleman, common 
student, or commoner, who will, as soon as possible, 
bring the same back to the afflicted loser, shall, with 
pleasure, receive ten guineas reward ; a suitor shall 
receive Jive guineas ; and a scout or porter, one 
guinea. The notes were all Bank of England notes, 
I only received this morning from my father. My 

name is , and I lodge at , facing Tom 

Gate, where I am anxiously waiting for some kind 
friend to bring them to me. — Vivant Rex et Regina" 



SUCKING THE MILK OF BOTH UNIVERSITIES 

Is an epithet applied to those members who, after 
graduating at one, proceeds to a like degree at 
the other. A party one day disputing as to 
whether Oxford or Cambridge was the more dis- 
tinguished seat of learning, — " It can't affect me," 
exclaimed one of them, " for I was educated at 
both." Upon which a wag observed, " He reminded 
him of a calf that was suckled by two cows." 
" How so? " said the other. " Why, it turned out 
the greatest calf I ever knew," was the retort. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 205 

Amongst the musical professors of Cambridge, and 
not the least, who was organist of King's College 
also, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, was 
Dr. Thomas Tudway. He was a notorious wag, and 
when several of the members of the University of 
Cambridge expressed their discontent at the paucity 
of the patronage, and the rigour of the government 
of the "proud Duke of Somerset/' whose statue 
graces their senate house, he facetiously observed 

11 The Chancellor rides us all without a bit in our mouths. 11 
LIKE RABELAIS, 

In him the passion for punning was strong in death, 
though less profane. When he laid dangerously ill of 
the quinsy (of which he soon after died), his physi- 
cian, seeing some hope, turned from his patient to 
Mrs. Tudway, who was weeping in despair at his 
danger, and observed, u Courage, madam ! The 
Dr. will get up May-hill yet, he has swallowed some 
nourishment/' Upon which Dr. Tudway said, as 
well as his disease would permit him to articulate, 
" Don't mind him, my dear: one swallow don't make 
a summer." 



AMBASSADORS OF KING JESUS AT OXFORD. 

The Rev. Charles Godwyn, B. D., Fellow of 
Baliol College, grandson to Dr. Francis G., Bishop 
of Hereford, in a letter, dated March 14, 1768, 
printed in Nichols's Anecdotes, says, "a very sad 



'206 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

affair lias happened " at Oxford. " The principal of 
Edmund Hall (Dr. George Dixon) has been indis- 
creet enough to admit into his hall, by the recom- 
mendation of Lady Huntingdon, seven London 
tradesmen, one a tapster, another a barber, &c. 
They have little or no learning, but all of them have 
a high opinion of themselves, as being ambassadors 
of King Jesus. One of them, upon that title con- 
ferred by himself, has been a preacher. Complaint 
was made to the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. David Dureil 
(principal of Hertford College), I believe, by the 
Bishop of Oxford; and he, in his own right, as 
Vice-Chancellor, had last week a visitation of the 
hall. Some of the preaching tradesmen were found 
so void of learning, that they were expelled from the 
hall. ,, 



A SURPRISING EFFORT OF INTELLECT. 

Robert Austin, a Fellow of King's College, Cam- 
bridge, was amanuensis to the famous Arabic pro- 
fessor, Wheelock, who employed him in correcting 
the press of his Persic Gospels, the first of the kind 
ever printed, with a Latin translation and notes. Of 
this surprising young man, he says, " in the space of 
two months, not knowing a letter in Arabic or 
Persic at the beginning, he sent a letter to me in 
Norfolk, of peculiar passages, so that of his age I 
never met with the like; and his indefatigable 
patience, and honesty, or ingenuity, exceed, if possi- 
ble, his capacity." But his immoderate application 
brought on a derangement of mind, and he died 
early in 1654. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 207 



JUDGMENT OF PROFESSOR HALLIFAX. 

When Queen Elizabeth was questioned on the 
subject of her faith in the Sacrament, she dexterous! y 
avoided giving offence by replying — 

" Christ was the word that spake it, 
He took the bread and brake it, 
And what his word did make it, 
That I believe, and take it." 

Scarcely less ingenious was the reply of Bishop 
Hallifax, when Regius Professor of Civil Law at 
Cambridge, upon Dr. Parr and the Rev. Joseph 
Smith (both resident at Stanmore) applying to him 
for his judgment on a literary dispute between them. 
His response was in the following official language, 
by which he dexterously avoided the imputation of 
partiality : — 

M Nolo inter ponere judicium meum." 

His name reminds me that he married a Cooke, the 
daughter of Dr. William Cooke, Provost of King's 
College, Cambridge, for whom George the Third had 
so great a regard, that he extended it to his children. 
The Bishop and his wife being at Cheltenham when 
the King was there, and some person asking why 
his Majesty paid Dr. Hallifax such marked respect, 
was answered, "Sir, he married a Cooke." This 
being in the presence of 

THE CELEBRATED OXONIAN, DEAN TUCKER, 

" I, too," he facetiously remarked, "have a claim to 
his Majesty's attention, for I married a cook," 



208 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

alluding to the fact, that his second wife originally 
held that rank in his domestic establishment. 



OH! FOR A DISTICH. 

A Pembrokian Cantab, named Penlycross, having 
written an Essay, a candidate for the Norrisian 
prize (which it was necessary he should subscribe 
with a Greek or Latin motto, as well as a sealed 
letter, enclosing his name, after being for a time at 
a loss for one), and having an ominous presentiment 
of its rejection, he seized his pen and subscribed the 
following on both : 

" Distichon ut poscas nolente, volente, Minerva, 
Mos sacer? Unde mihi distichon? En perago." 

" Without a distich, vain the oration is ; 
Oh ! for a distich ! Doctor, e'en take this." 



SKELETON SERMONS. 

The author of the Pursuits of Literature ridicules 
the epithet " Skeleton Sermons," as " ridiculous 
and absurd," speaking of those of the Rev. Charles 
Simeon, M.A. now Senior Fellow of King's College. 
When, in 1796, that divine published his edition 
of Claude's Essay on a Sermon, with an Appendix 
containing one hundred Skeleton Sermons, the cele- 
brated Dr. William Cooke, father of the late Regius 
Professor of Greek, was Provost of King's, and to 
him, as in duty bound, Mr. Simeon presented a copy. 
The Provost read it with his natural appearance of 



NUTS TO CRACK. 209 

a proud and dignified humility, and, struck with 
the unfortunate and somewhat ludicrous title of 
Skeleton Sermons, " Skeletons ! skeletons ! M he 
exclaimed, in his significant way, u Shall these 
dry bones live ? " What would the Provost have 
thought and said, had he lived to see an edition of 
them in ten volumes 4to. price ten guineas ? 



I WISH HE HAD PAID IT FIRST. 

The present Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cain- 
bridge, being told that one of his pupils, the author 
of "Alma Mater," had therein published his bill, 
coolly replied, " I wish he had paid it first." An- 
other Cantab had — 

A MIND TO MAKE TRIAL OF THE STOCKS, 

Which unluckily stood in the church-yard, and it 
happening to be a saint's day, the congregation were 
at prayers, of which he was ignorant, when he got a 
friend to put him in. His friend sauntered away, 
whether wilfully or not I leave my readers to guess, 
and he was in vain struggling to release himself, 
when the congregation issued forth, who were not a 
little moved at his situation. Many laughed, but 
one, an old woman, compassionately released him. 
A similar story is told of the celebrated son of Grant a, 

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE PRATT, 

Who had afterwards to try a cause in which the 

plaintiff had brought his action against a magistrate 

for falsely imprisoning him in the stocks. The 

p 



!210 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

counsel for the defence arguing that the action was 
a frivolous one, on the ground that the stocks were 
no punishment, his Lordship beckoned his learned 
brother to him, and told him, in his ear, that having 
himself been put in the stocks, he could assure him 
it was no such slight punishment as he represented, 
and the plaintiff obtained a verdict against the magis- 
trate in consequence. 



HISSING VERSUS MONEY. 

Parker says, in his Musical Memoirs, that the 
Oxford scholars once hissed Madame Mara, conceiv- 
ing she assumed too much importance in her bearing. 
No wonder they so treated Signor Samperio, one 
evening at a concert, attracted, when he came for- 
ward to sing, by his " tall, lank figure, sunken eyes, 
hollow cheeks, and shrill voice ;" in fact, they hissed 
him off before he had half got through his cavatina. 
The gentleman who acted as steward was deeply 
moved at his situation, and, going up to Samperio, 
endeavoured to soothe him. But the signor, not at 
all hurt, replied, " O, sare, never mind ; dey may 
hissa me as much as dey please, if I getti di money/' 
Another anecdote is told of — 

TWO OXFORD SCHOLARS POSING DR. HAYES, 

The late musical professor, who was some six feet 
high, and scarcely inferior in bulk to the famous 
Essex miller. He had at last so much difficulty in 
getting in and out of a stage coach, that whenever 
he went from Oxford to London to conduct the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 211 

annual performances at St. Paul's, for the benefit of 
the Sons of the Clergy, which he did for many years 
gratis, his custom was to engage a whole seat to him- 
self, and when once in and seated to remain so till the 
end of the journey. The fact became known to two 
Oxford wags, who resolved to pose the Doctor, and 
to that end engaged the other two inside places, and 
taking care to be there before him, seated themselves 
in the opposite corners, one to the right the other to 
the left, and there the Doctor found them, on arriving 
to take his place. " How was he to dispose of his 
corpus ? " was the query : they had a clear right to 
their seats, and no alternative seemed left him, as 
they declined moving, but to place his head in one 
corner and his feet in the other. At last our Ox- 
onians, having fully enjoyed the dilemma in which 
they had placed the Doctor, consented to give way, 
confessed their purpose, and even the Doctor had 
the good sense to laugh at his own expense. 



GROSS INDEED. 

When the celebrated Cantab, and editor of Lucre- 
tius, Gilbert Wakefield, was convicted of a libel before 
the late Judge Grose, who sentenced him to fine and 
imprisonment, turning from the bar, he said, with 
the spirit of a Frenchman, it was — "gross indeed." 
To the same learned Cantab, Dyer attributes the 
following — 

PUN UPON PYE. 

Being once asked his opinion of the poetry of 
Pye, the then Poet Laureate his reply was, that he 
p2 



212 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

thought very handsomely of some of Mr. P/s poems, 
which he had read. This did not suffice, and he was 
pressed for his opinion of the Laureat-Ode that had 
just appeared in the public prints. Not having seen 
it, he desired his friend to read it to him, and the 
introductory lines containing something about the 
singing of birds, Wakefield abruptly silenced him 
with this happy allusion to the Laureat's name, in 
the following nursery rhymes : — 

" And when the Pye was opened, 
The birds began to sing : 
And was not this a dainty dish 
To set before a king." 



THE CAMBRIDGE FAMILY OF SPINTEXTS 

Begun with John Alcock, LL.D., Bishop of Ely, 
and founder of Jesus' College. 

" Garrulus nunc quando consumet cunq; loquaces, 
Si sapiat, vitet, simul atque adoluerit setas." 

In 1 483, says Wilson, in his Memorabilia Cantabrigiae, 
he preached before the University "Bonum et blandum 
sermonem prcedicavit, et duravit in horam tertiam et 
ultra" which is supposed to be a sermon that was 
printed in his lifetime, in 1498, by the famous Pynson, 
entitled, " Galli Cantus ad Confratres suos Curatos 
in Synodo, apud Barnwell, 2btk September, 1498," 
at the head of which is a print of the Bishop preach- 
ing to the Clergy, with a cock at each side, and 
another in the first page. The next most celebrated 
preacher of this class was 



NUTS TO CRACK. 213 



DOCTOR ISAAC BARROW, 

The friend, partly tutor, and most learned contem- 
porary of Newton, whom Charles the Second said 
was an unfair preacher, leaving nothing new to be 
said by those who followed him. He was once 
appointed, upon some public occasion, to preach 
before the Dean and Chapter in Westminster Abbey, 
and gave them a discourse of nearly four hours in 
length. During the latter part of it, the congregation 
became so tired of sitting, that they dropped out, one 
by one, till scarcely another creature besides the 
Dean and choristers were left. Courtesy kept the 
Dean in his place, but soon his patience got the better 
of his manners, 

" Verba per attentam non ibunt Csesaris aurem," 

and beckoning one of the singing boys, he desired him 
to go and tell the organist to play him down, which 
was done. When asked, on descending from the 
pulpit, if he did not feel exhausted, he replied, " No ; 
only a little tired with standing so long." A third 
u long-winded preacher" (and they were never 
admired at either Oxford or Cambridge, where 
u short and sweet" is preferred) was 



DOCTOR SAMUEL PARR. 



He delivered his justly celebrated Spital Sermon 
in the accustomed place, Chiist-Church, Newgate 
Street, Easter Tuesday, 1800, before his friend, 
Harvey Christian Combe, Esq., M.P., the celebrated 



214 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

brewer , then Lord Mayor. " Before the service 
begun/' says one of his friends, " I went into the 
vestry, and found Dr. Parr seated, with pipes and 
tobacco placed before him on the table. He evidently 
felt the importance of the occasion, but felt, at the 
same time, a confidence in his own powers. When 
he ascended the pulpit, a profound silence prevailed. 
The sermon occupied nearly an hour and a quarter 
in the deb very ; and in allusion to its extreme length, 
it was remarked by a lady, who had been asked her 
opinion of it, " enough there is, and more than 
enough " — the first words of its first sentence, — a bon 
mot he is said to have received with good humour. 
As he and the Lord Mayor were coming out of the 
church, the latter, albeit unused to the facetious 
mode, >' Well," said Dr. Parr to him, always anxious 
for well-merited praise, " how did you bke the 
sermon ? Let me have the suffrage of your strong 
and honest understanding." " Why, Doctor/' re- 
turned his lordship, there were four things in your 
sermon I did not like to hear." " State them/' 
replied Parr, eagerly. " Why, to speak frankly, then/* 
said Combe, ie they were the quarters of the church 
clock, which struck four times before you had finished 
it." " I once saw, lying in the Chapter Coffee-house," 
says Dyer, in a letter printed in Parriana, "the Doctor's 
Spital Sermon, with a comical caricature of him, in 
the pulpit, preaching and smoking at the same time* 
with ex fumo dare lucem issuing from his mouth/* 



NUTS TO CRACK. L } 1 5 

ANOTHER CLASS OP PREACH] 

At Cambridge, and eke at Oxford, have taken an 
opposite course, and from their being to be had at 
all times, have, at the former place, obtained the 
soubriquet of " Hack Preachers." In the Gracilis ad 
Cantabrigiam, they are described as " the common 
exhibitioners at St. Mary's, employed in the service 
of defaulters and absentees. It must be confessed, 
however/' adds this writer, <e that these hacks are 
good fast trotters, as they commonly go over the 
course in twenty minutes, and sometimes less.'* 
Gilbert Wakefield, whom nobody will suspect of 
forbearance, calls them, in his Memoirs, " a piteous, 
unedifying tribe." This, however, can scarcely be 
applied to the ordinary preachers of the present 
day, and especial care is taken by the heads of the 
university that the select preachers (one of whom is 
named for each month during term-time) do not 
name substitutes themselves. The following poetic 
jeu oV esprit, entitled " Lines on three of the appointed 
Preachers of St. Marys, Cambridge, attaching 
Calvin," were no others than the three eminent 
living divines, Dr. Butler, Dr. Maltby, Bishop of 
Chichester, and Dr. Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peter- 
borough : — 

" Three Preachers, in three distant counties born, 
The Church of England's doctrines do adorn : 
Harsh Calvin's mystic tenets were their mark, 
Founded in texts perverted, gloomy, dark. 
Butler in clearness and in force surpassed, 
Maltby with sweetness spoke of ages past ; 
Whilst Marsh himself, who scarce could further go, 
With Criticism's fetters bound the foe." 



216 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

This punning morsel, of some standing in the uni- 
versity, is scarce surpassed by Hood himself : — 

THE THREE-HEADED PRIEST. 

Old Doctor Delve, a scribbling quiz, 

Afraid of critics' jibes, 
By turns assumes the various phiz 

Of three old classic scribes. 

Though now with high erected head, 

And lordly strut he'll go by us, 
He once made lawyers' robes, 'tis said, 

And called himself Mac-robius. 

Last night I asked the man to sup, 

Who showed a second alias ; 
He gobbled all my jellies up, 

O greedy Aldus Gellius, 

On Sunday, arrogant and proud, 

He purrs like any tom-puss, 
And reads the Word of God so loud, 

He must be Theo-pompus. 



MY BEEF BURNT TO A CINDER. 

The family of the Spintexts have, it appears, very 
lately put forth a scion, in the person of a learned 
divine, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who, 
being appointed a Select Preacher in 1833, delivered 
a discourse of the extraordinary duration of an hour 
and a half! The present Father of the University 
and Master of Peter-house, Dr. Francis Barnes, 
upwards of ninety years of age, was one of the heads 
present. He sat out the first three quarters of an 
hour, but then began to hejidgetty. Another quarter 






NUTS TO CRACK. 217 

of an hour expired, — the preacher was still in the 
midst of his discourse. The Doctor (now become 
right down impatient), being seated the lowest (next 
to the Vice-Chancellor) in Golgotha, or the " Place 
of Skulls," as it is called, he moved, first one seat 
higher (the preacher is still on his legs), then to a 
third, then to a fourth, then to a fifth ; and before 
the hour and a half had quite expired, he joined one 
of the junior esquire bedells at the top, to whom he 
observed, with that original expression of face for 
which he is so remarkable, " my beef is burnt to a 
cinder." 



SHORT HAND WRITING AVAS INVENTED BY A 
CANTAB, 

According to the first volume of the Librarian, pub- 
lished by Mr. Savage, of the London Institution ; 
who says, that the first work printed on the subject 
was by Dr. Timothy Bright, of Cambridge, in 1598, 
who dedicated it to Queen Elizabeth, under the title 
of " An art of short, swift, and secret writing, by 
Character." 



THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE LADIES. 

Before the erection of the Senate-House in the 
University of Cambridge, the annual grand Com- 
mencement was held in St. Mary's, the University 
church. " It seems," says Dyer, in his History of 
Cambridge, " that on these occasions (the time when 
gentlemen take their degrees)" that is, the degree of 



218 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

M.A. more particularly, "ladies had been allowed to 
sit in that part of the church assigned to the doctors, 
called the throne: it was, however, at length 
agreed amongst them (the doctors) that ladies 
should be no longer permitted to sit there ; and the 
place assigned to them was under the throne, in the 
church." This invasion of what the fair almost 
looked upon as the abstraction of a right, led to a 
partial war of words and innuendos, and the matter 
was at last taken up by the facetious Roger Long, 
D.D., Master of Pembroke College, who, he adds, in 
his Supplement to his History, was celebrated for 
his Treatise on Astronomy, and for his erection of a 
sphere in his College eighteen feet in diameter, still 
shown there. On this humorous occasion, he was 
a dissentient against the Heads, not a little bustle 
was excited amongst the Cambridge ladies, a subject 
for a few jokes was afforded the wags of the Univer • 
sity, and he produced his famous music-speech, 
spoken at the public Commencement of 1714, on 
the 6th of July, which was afterwards published, but 
is now very scarce. It was delivered in an assumed 
character, as "being the Petition of the Ladies 
of Cambridge," and is full of whim and humour, 
in Swift's best manner, beginning — 

11 The humble petition of the ladies, who are all ready to be 

eaten up with the spleen, 
To think they are to be cooped up in the Chancel, where 

they can neither see nor be seen, 
But must sit in the dumps by themselves, all stew'd and 

pent up, 
And can only peep through the lattice, like so many chickens 

in a coop ; 






NUTS TO CRACK. 21fl 

"Whereas last Commencement the ladies had a gallery pro- 
vided near enough, 

To see the heads sleep, and the fellow-commoners take 
snuff." 

u How he could have delivered it in so sacred a 
place as St. Mary's," says Dyer, " is matter of sur- 
prise (though they say, good fun, like good coin, is 
current any where)." It is pleasant to see a grave 
man descend from his heights, as Pope says, " to 
guard the fair." Though nobody could probably be 
much offended at the time, unless the Vice-Chancel- 
lor, whom, if we understand the writer's meaning, 
he calls an old woman, when he says — 

" Such cross ill-natured doings as these are, even a saint 
would vex, 
To see a Vice -Chancellor so barbarous to one of his own 
sex. 1 ' 

But the Doctor had 

A NATURAL TURN FOR HUMOUR, 

As is further illustrated by the celebrated Mr. Jones, 
of Welwyn, who calls him " a very ingenious person." 
" At the public Commencement of 1713," he Bay* 
" Dr. Greene (Master of Bene't College, and after- 
wards Bishop of Ely) being then Vice-Chancellor, 
Mr. Long was pitched upon for the tripos perform- 
ance : it was witty and humorous, and has passed 
through divers editions. Some who remembered the 
delivery of it told me, that in addressing the Vioe- 
Chancellor (whom the University wags usually 
styled Miss Greene), the tripos-orator, being a nature 
of Norfolk, and assuming the Norfolk dialect, instead 



220 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of saying DominE Vice-CancellariE, did very audibly 
pronounce the words thus, — DominA Vice-Cancella- 
riA ; which occasioned a general smile in that great 
auditory." I could recollect several other 

INGENIOUS REPARTEES 

Of his, if there were occasion, adds Mr. Jones : but 
his friend, Mr. Bonfoy, of Ripon, told me this little 
incident : — that he, and Dr. Long walking together 
in Cambridge, in a dusky evening, and coming to a 
short post fixed in the pavement, which Mr. B., in 
the midst of chat and inattention, took to be a boy 
standing in his way, he said in a hurry, " Get out of 
my way, boy." " That boy, sir," said the Doctor, 
very calmly and slily, " is a post boy, who turns off 
his way for nobody" 



CELEBRATED ALL OVER GERMANY. 

George the Second is said, like his father, to have 
had a strong predilection for his continental domi- 
nions, of which his ministers did not fail, occasionally, 
to take advantage. A residentiary of St. Paul's 
cathedral happening to fall vacant, Lord Granville 
was anxious to secure it for the learned translator of 
Demosthenes, Dr. John Taylor, fellow of St. Johns 
College, Cambridge. The King started some scruples 
at first, but his Lordship carried his point easily, on 
assuring his Majesty, which was the fact, that " the 
Doctor's learning was celebrated all over Germany" 



NUTS TO CRACK. '221 



REBUSES AT OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



BECKIXGTOX. 

The learned prelate, at whose expense the rector's 
lodgings were built at Lincoln College, Oxford, is 
commemorated by his rebus, a beacon and a tun, 
which may still be traced on the walls. 

ALCOCK, 

Founder of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Bishop of 
Ely, either rebused himself, or was rebused by others, 
in almost every conspicuous part of his College, by a 
cock perched upon a globe. On one window is a 
cock with a label from its mouth, bearing the inscrip- 
tion, Eyo) et/xi aXetcToop : to which another opposite 
bravely crows, says Cole, Ovrcos km eyco : 

44 I am a cock ! " the one doth cry : 
And t'other answers — " So am I." 

There is a plate of him at the head of his celebrated 
Sermon, printed by Pynson, in 1498, with a cock at 
each side, and another on the first page. The sub- 
ject of the discourse is the crowing of the cock when 
Peter denied Christ. 

EGLESFIELD, 

The celebrated founder of Queen's College, Oxford, 
who was a native of Cumberland, and confessor to 
Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, gave the 



222 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

College, for its arms, three spread eagles ; but a 
singular custom, according to a rebus, has been 
founded upon the fanciful derivation of his name, 
from aiguille, needle, andjtf/, thread; and it became 
a commemorative mark of respect, continued to this 
day, for each member of the College to receive from 
the Bursar, on New Year's Day, a needle and thread, 
with the advice, " Take this and be thrifty" " These 
conceits were not unusual at the time the College 
was founded," says Chalmers, in his History of 
Oxford, " and are sometimes thought trifling, merely 
because we cannot trace their original use and signi- 
fication. Hollingshed informs us, that when the 
Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry the Fifth, who 
was educated at this College, went to Court in order 
to clear himself from certain charges of disaffection, 
he wore a gown of blue satin, full of oilet holes, and 
at every hole a needle hanging by a silk thread. 
This is supposed to prove at least, that he was an 
academician of Queen's, and it may be conjectured 
that this was the original academical dress." The 
same writer says, the Founder ordered that the 
Society should " be called to their meals by the 
sound of the trumpet (a practice which still prevails, 
as does a similar one at the Middle Temple, London), 
and the Fellows being placed on one side of the 
table in robes of scarlet (those of the Doctor's faced 
with black fur), were to oppose in philosophy the 
poor scholars, who, in token of submission and humi- 
lity, kept on the other side. As late as the last 
century the Fellows and Taberders used sometimes 
to dispute on Sundays and holidays. 



NUTS TO CRACK. '22-i 



ASHTOX. 

In an arched recess of the ante -chapel of St. John's 
College, Cambridge, is the tomb of the celebrated 
Dr. Hugh Ashton, who took part with the famous 
Bishop Fisher (beheaded by Henry the Eighth) in 
the erection of the buildings of that learned found- 
ation, and was the second Master of the Society. 
His tomb, as Fuller observes, exhibits " the marble 
effigy of his body when living, and the humiliating 
contrast of his skeleton when dead, with the usual 
conceit of the times, the figure of an ash tree growing- 
out of a tun" 

LAKE LEMAN. 

Dyer records of the learned contemporary and 
antiquarian coadjutor of the late Bishop of Cloyne, 
the Rev. Mr. Leman, a descendant of the famous 
Sir Robert Naunton, Public Orator at Cambridge, 
and a Secretary of State, that " his drawing-room 
was painted en fresco with the scenery around Lake 
Leman" 

SOMETHING IN YOUR WAY. 

The same relates of himself, that, one day look- 
ing at some caricatures at a window in Fleet- 
street, Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot), whom he knew, 
came up to him. " There, sir," said Mr. Dyer 
to the Doctor, pointing to the caricatures, " is 
something in your way." (i And there is something 
in your way," rejoined the Doctor, pointing to some 



224 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of the ladies of the pave who happened to be passing. 
Peter was sure to pay in full. 



DUNS 

Have ever been a grievous source of disquietude to 
both Oxonians and Cantabs. Tom Randolph, the 
favourite son of Ben Jonson, made them the subject 
of his muse. But in no instance, perhaps, have the 
race been so completely put to the blush, " couleur de 
rose," as by the following 

ODE ON THE PLEASURE OF BEING OUT OF DEBT. 

Horace, Ode XXII. Book I. Imitated. 

Integer vitce scelerisque purus, fyc. 

I. 

The man who not a farthing owes, 
Looks down with scornful eye on those 

Who rise by fraud and cunning ; 
Though in the Pig-market he stand, 
"With aspect grave and clear-starch' d band, 

He fears no tradesman's dunning. 

II. 

He passes by each shop in town, 
Nor hides his face beneath his gown, 

No dread his heart invading ; 
He quaffs the nectar of the Tuns, 
Or on a spur-gall' d hackney runs 

To London masquerading. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 225 

III. 

What joy attends a new-paid debt ! 
Our Manciple* I lately met, 

Of visage wise and prudent ; 
I on the nail my battels paid, 
The master turn'd away dismay' d, 

Hear this each Oxford student ! 

IV. 

With justice and with truth to trace 
The grisly features of his face, 

Exceeds all man's recounting ; 
Suffice, he look'd as grim and sour 
As any lion in the Tower, 

Or half-starv'd cat-a-mountain. 

V. 

A phiz so grim you scarce can meet, 
In Bedlam, Newgate, or the Fleet, 

Dry nurse of faces horrid ! 
Not Buckhorse fierce, with many a bruise, 
Displays such complicated hues 

On his undaunted forehead. 

VI. 

Place me on Scotland's bleakest hill, 
Provided I can pay my bill, 

Stay ev'ry thought of sorrow ; 
There falling sleet, or frost, or rain, 
Attack a soul resolved, in vain — 

It may be fair to-morrow. 

* Churton says, in his Lives of the Founders of Brazenose 
College, Oxford, that " Manciples, the purveyors general of Col- 
leges and Halls, were formerly men of so much consequence, that, 
to check their amhition, it was ordered by an express statute, that 
no Manciple should be Principal of a Hall." 
Q 



226 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



VII. 

To Haddington then let me stray, 
And take Joe Pullen's tree away, 

I'll ne'er complain of Phoebus ; 
But while he scorches up the grass, 
I'll fill a bumper to my lass, 

And toast her in a rebus. 



QUEERING A DUN. 



A Cambridge wag who was skilled in the science 
of electricity, as well as in the art of ticking, having 
got in pretty deep with his tailor, who was conti- 
nually dunning him for payment, resolved to give 
snip "a settler" as he said, the next time he 
mounted his stairs. He accordingly charged his 
electrifying machine much deeper than usual, and 
knowing pretty well the time of snip's approach, 
watched his coming to the foot of the stairs where 
he kept, and ere he could reach the door, fixed the 
conductor to the brass handle. The tailor having 
long in vain sought occasion to catch him with his 
outer door not sported, was so delighted at finding 
it so, that, resolving not to lose time, he seized the 
handle of the inner door, so temptingly exposed to 
view, determining to introduce himself to his creditor 
sans ceremonie. No sooner, however, did his fingers 
come in contact with it than the shock followed, so 
violent, that it stunned him for an instant : but re- 
covering himself, he bolted as though followed, as 
the poet says, by " ten thousand devils," never again 
to return. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 227 



GRAY THE POET A CONTRAST TO BISHOP 
WARBURTON. 

Gray's letters, and Bishop Warburton's polemical 
writings, show, that in more respects than one they 
were gifted with a like temperament : but in the 
following- instances they form a contrast to each 
other. In the library of the British Museum is an 
interesting letter occasioned by the death of the 
Rev. N. Nicholls, LL.B., Rector of Loud and Brad- 
well, in Suffolk, from the pen of the now generally 
acknowledged author of" The Pursuits of Literature/' 
J. T. Mathias, M.A., in which he says, that shortly 
after that elegant scholar, and lamented divine, be- 
came a student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at the 
age of eighteen, a friend introduced him to Gray, the 
poet, at that time redolent with fame, and resident 
in Peter- House, to speak to whom was honourable ; 
but to be admitted to his acquaintance, or to his 
familiarity, was the height of youthful, or indeed of 
any ambition. Shortly after this, Mr. N. was in a 
company of which Mr. Gray was one ; and, as it 
became his youth, he did not enter into conversation, 
but listened with attention. The subject, however, 
being general and classical, and as Mr. Nicholls, 
even at that early period, was acquainted not only 
with the Greek and Latin, but with many of the 
best Italian poets, he ventured, with great diffidence. 
to offer a short remark, and happened to illustrate 
what he had said by an apposite quotation from 
Dante. At the name of Dante, Mr. Gray suddenly 
Q2 



228 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

turned round to him and said, "Right: but have 
you read Dante, sir ? " "I have endeavoured to 
understand him," replied Mr. N. Mr. Gray being- 
much pleased with the illustration, and with the 
taste w r hich it evinced, addressed the chief of his 
discourse to him for the remainder of the evening, 
and invited him to his rooms in Pembroke Hall ; 
and finding him ready and docile, he became at- 
tached to him and gave him instruction in the 
course of his studies, to which, adds Mr. Mathias, 
" I attribute the extent and value of his knowledge, 
and the peculiar accuracy and correct taste which 
distinguished him throughout life, and which I have 
seldom observed in any man in a more eminent 
degree." And I wish every young man of genius 
might hear and consider, observes Mr. M., comment- 
ing upon an incident so honourable to all parties, 
" the 

VALUE OF A WORD SPOKE IN DUE SEASON, 

With modesty and propriety, in the highest, I mean 
the most learned and virtuous company." What a 
different spirit was evinced, in the following incident, 
by that great polemical writer, Bishop Warburton : 
but it happily originated 

THE CANONS OF CRITICISM, 

Which were the production of Thomas Edwards, an 
Etonian and King's College man, where he graduated 
M.A. in 1734, but missing a fellowship, turned 
soldier. After he had been some time in the army, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 

says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1775*. 
it so happened that, being at Bath, after Mr. War- 
burton's marriage to Mr. Allen's niece, he was intro- 
duced at Prior Park, enfamille. The conversation 
not unfrecmently turning on literary subjects, Mr. 
Warburton generally took the opportunity of show- 
ing his superiority in Greek, not having the least 
idea that an officer of the army understood anything 
of that language, or that Mr. Edwards had been bred 
at Eton ; till one day, being accidentally in the 
library, Mr. Edwards took down a Greek author, 
and explained a passage in it in a manner that Mr. 
Warburton did not approve. This occasioned no 
small contest ; and Mr. Edwards (who had now dis- 
covered to Mr. Warburton how he came by his 
knowledge) endeavoured to convince him, that he 
did not understand the original language, but that 
his knowledge arose from French translations. 
Mr. Warburton was highly irritated ; an incurable 
breach took place ; and this trifling altercation (after 
Mr. Edwards had quitted the army and was entered 
of Lincoln's Inn) produced The Canons of Critin- 



BISHOP HARRINGTON'S SPLENDID GIFT. AND 
OTHER TRAITS OF HIM. 

That munificent prelate and Oxonian, Dr. Shute 
Barington, sixth son of the first Viscount, and the 
late Bishop of Durham, a prelate, indeed, whose 
charities were unbounded, was so conscientious in 
the discharge of his functions, that he personally 



230 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

examined all candidates for Holy Orders, and, how- 
ever strongly they might be recommended, rejected 
all that appeared unworthy of the sacred trust. On 
one occasion, a relative, relying for advancement 
upon his patronage, having intimated a desire to 
enter the Church, the Bishop inquired with what 
preferment he would be contented. " Five hundred 
pounds a year will satisfy all my wants," was the 
reply. " You shall have it," answered the conscien- 
tious prelate : " not out of the patrimony of the 
Church, but out of my private fortune." The same 
Bishop gave the entire of 60,000£. at once, for 
founding schools, unexpectedly recovered in a law- 
suit ; and amongst other persons of talent, preferred 
Paley to the valuable living of Bishop Wearmouth, 
unsolicited and totally unknown to him, save through 
his valuable writings. 



AN ADMIRABLE PULPIT ADMONITION 

Is recorded of the celebrated Fellow of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, the Rev. James Scott, M.A., better 
known as Ant i-Sej anus, who acquired extraordinary 
eminence as a pulpit orator, both in and out of the 
University. He frequently preached at St. Mary s, 
where crowds of the University attended him. On 
one occasion he offended the Undergraduates, by the 
delivery of a severe philippic against gaming ; which 
they deeming a work of supererogation, evinced 
their displeasure by scraping the floor with their 
feet (an old custom now scarcely resorted to twice 
in a century). He, however, severely censured 



NUTS TO CRACK. 231 

them for this act of indecorum, shortly afterwards, 
in another discourse, for which he selected the appro- 
priate text, " Keep thy feet when thou goest to the 
House of God," 



THE SIMPLICITY OF GREAT MINDS. 

It is not surprising- that our distinguished philo- 
sophers and mathematicians have rarely evinced 
much knowledge of men and manners, or of the 
ordinary circumstances of life, since they are so 
much occupied in telling- " the number of the stars,* 
in tracing the wonders of creation, or in balancing 
the mental and physical powers of man. Our illus- 
trious Cantab, Bacon, says his biographer, was 
cheated by his servants at the bottom, whilst he sat 
in abstraction at the top of his table ; and he of 
whom Dr. Johnson said (the great and good 
Newton), that had he lived in the days of ancient 
Greece, he would have been worshipped as a deity ; 
of whom, too, the poet wrote — 

11 Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night, 
God said, ' Let Newton be,' and all was light, " 

Caused a smaller hole to be perforated in his room 
door, when his favourite cat had a kitten, not remem- 
bering that it would follow puss through the larger 
one. Another more modern and less distinguished 
but not less amiable Cantab, who was Senior Wran- 
gler in his year, one day inquired — 

" OF WHAT COUNTRY MARINES WERE?" 

Another distinguished Senior Wrangler, Professor 



232 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

and divine, occasionally amuses his friends by re- 
hearsing the fact, that once, having to preach in 
the neighbourhood of Cambridge, he hired a blind 
horse to ride the distance on, and his path laying 
cross a common, where the road was but indis- 
tinctly marked, he became so absorbed in abstract 
calculations, that, forgetting to guide his steed 
aright, he and the horse wandered so far awry, 
that they tumbled " head over heels," as the folks 
say, upon a cow slumbering by the way side. On 
dit, the same Cantab was one morning caught 
over his breakfast-fire with an egg in his hand, to 
minute the time by, and his — 

WATCH DOING TO A TURN IN THE SAUCEPAN. 

When he went in for A.B. his natural diffidence 
prevented his doing much in the first four days of 
the Senate House examination, and he was conse- 
quently bracketted low : but rallying his confidence, 
he challenged all the men of his years, and was 
Senior Wrangler. This incident caused him to be 
received with rapturous applause, upon his being 
presented to the Vice-Chancellor for his degree, on 
the following Saturday. A few days after he is 
said to have been in London, and entered one of the 
larger theatres at the same instant with Royalty 
itself: — the audience rose with one accord, and 
thunders of applause followed ! " This is too much" 
said our Cantab to his friend, modestly hiding his 
face in his hat, having, in the simplicity of his heart, 
taken the huzzas and claps to be an improved edi- 
tion of the Senate House. Another Cantab, who 



NUTS TO CRACK. 233 

was also a Senior Wrangler, and guilty of many 
singularities, as well as some follies, one who has 
unjustly heaped reproach on the head of his Alma 
Mater (see his " Progress of a Senior Wrangler at 
Cambridge," in the numbers of the defunct London 
Magazine), had the following quaternion posted on 
his room door in Trinity : — 

" King Solomon in days of old, 
The wisest man was reckon' d : 
I fear as much cannot be told 
Of Solomon the Second." 



A HOST OF SINGULARITIES 

Are recorded of the famous Cantab and Etonian, the 
Rev. George Harvest, B.D., who was one day walk- 
ing in the Temple Gardens, London, with the son of 
his patron, the great Speaker Onslow, when he 
picked up a curious pebble, observing he would keep 
it for his friend, Lord Bute. He and his companion 
were going to The Beefsteak Club, then held in Ivy- 
lane. Mr. Onslow asked him what o'clock it was, upon 
which he took out his watch, and observed they had 
but ten minutes good. Another turn or two was pro- 
posed, but they had scarcely made half the length of 
the walk, when he coolly put the pebble into his fob, 
and threw his watch into the Thames. He was at 
another time in a boat with the same gentleman, 
when he began to read a favourite Greek author (for, 
like Porson, his coat pockets generally contained a 



234 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

moderate library) with such emphasis and strange 
gesticulations, that 

HIS WIG AND HAT FELL INTO THE WATER, 

And he coolly stepped over-hoard to recover them, 
without once dreaming that it was not terra-firma, 
and was fished out with great difficulty. He fre- 
quently wrote a letter to one person, forgot to 
subscribe his name to it, and directed it to another. 
On one occasion he provided himself with three 
sermons, having been appointed to preach before the 
Archdeacon and Clergy of the district. Some wags 
got them, and having intermixed the leaves, stitched 
them together in that state, and put them into his 
sermon-case. He mounted the pulpit at the usual 
time, took his text, but soon surprised his reverend 
audience by taking leave of the thread of his discourse. 
He was, however, so insensible to the dilemma in 
which he was placed, that he went preaching on. At 
last the congregation became impatient, both from 
the length and the nature of his sermon. First the 
archdeacon slipped out, then the clergy, one by one, 
followed by the rest of the congregation; but he 
never flagged, and would have finished 

HIS TRIPLE, THRICE-CONFUSED DISCOURSE, 

Had not the clerk reminded him that they were the 
sole occupants of the lately crowded church. He 
went down to Cambridge to vote for his Eton con- 
temporary, 



NUTS TO CRACK. 235 



THE CELEBRATED LORD SANDWICH, 

When the latter was candidate for the dignity of 
High-steward of the University, in opposition to 
Pitt. His lordship invited him to dine with some 
friends at the Rose Inn. " Apropos, my lord," 
exclaimed Harvest, during the meal, " whence do 
you derive your nick-name of Jemmy Twitcher?" 
" Why," said his lordship, " from some foolish 
fellow." " No, no," said Harvest, " not from some, 
for everybody calls you so ;" on which his lordship, 
knowing it to be the favourite dish of his quondam 
friend, put a huge slice of plum-pudding upon his 
plate, which effectually stopped his mouth. His 
lordship has the credit of being the originator and 
first President of the Cambridge Oriental Club. He 
was also 

THE INVENTOR OF SANDWICHES. 

Once passing a whole day at some game of which he 
was fond, he became so absorbed in its progress, that 
he denied himself time to eat, in the usual way, and 
ordered a slice of beef between two pieces of toasted 
bread, which he masticated without quitting his 
game ; and that sort of refreshment has ever since 
borne the designation of a Sandwich. Parkes, in his 
Musical Memoirs, gives him the credit of 

LAPSUS LINGUAE. 

It happened, he says, that during a feast given to 
his lordship by the Corporation of Worcester, when 



236 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

he was First Lord of the Admiralty, a servant let 
fall a dish with a boiled neat's tongue, as he was 
bringing it to table. The Mayor expressing his 
concern to his lordship, " Never mind," said he, 
"it's only a lapsus linguce!" which witty saying 
creating a great deal of mirth, one of the Aldermen 
present, at a dinner he gave soon after, instructed his 
servant to throw down a roast leg of mutton, that he 
too might have his joke. This was done ; " Never 
mind," he exclaimed to his friends, " it's only a 
lapsus linguce" The company stared, but he begun 
a roaring laugh, solus. Finding nobody joined therein, 
he stopped his mirth, saying, that when Lord Sand- 
wich said it, everybody laughed, and he saw no reason 
why they should not laugh at him. This sally had 
the desired effect, and the company, one and all, 
actually shook their sides, and our host was satisfied. 



OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE LOYALTY. 

In 1717, George I. and his ministers had con- 
trived to make themselves so unpopular, that the 
badges of the disaffected, oaken boughs, were pub- 
licly worn on the 29th of May, and white roses on 
the birth-day of the Pretender, the 10th of June. 
Oxford, and especially the university, manifested 
such strong feelings, that it was deemed expedient 
to send a military force there : Cambridge, more 
inclined to the Whig principles of the court and 
government, was at the same time complimented 
with a present of books. Upon this occasion, Dr. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 237 

Trapp, the celebrated Oxford poet and divine, wrote 
the following- epigram : — 

Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes, 

The wants of his two universities : 

Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why 

That learned body wanted loyalty ; 

But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning 

How that right loyal body wanted learning. 

Cambridge, as may be well supposed, was not 
backward in retorting" : and an able champion she 
found in her equally celebrated scholar, physician, 
and benefactor, Sir William Blowne (founder of a 
scholarship and the three gold medals called after his 
name), who replied to Dr. Trapp in the following 
quaternion : — 

The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse, 
For Tories know no argument but force : 
With equal grace, to Cambridge books he sent, 
For Whigs allow no force but argument. 

Not that Cambridge was behind Oxford in support- 
ing the unfortunate Charles the First, to whom the 
several colleges secretly conveyed nearly all their 
ancient plate ; and Cromwell, in consequence, retali- 
ated by confining and depriving numbers of her most 
distinguished scholars, both laymen and divines, 
many of whom died in exile : and the commissioners 
of parliament, with a taste worthy of the worst bar- 
barians, caused many of the buildings to be despoiled 
of their architectural ornaments and exquisite pieces 
of sculpture and painted glass. It was at this time 
appeared the following celebrated poetic trifle, extant 
in the Oxford Sausage, known as 



238 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 



THE CUSHION PLOT, 

Written by Herbert Beaver, Esq., of Corpus Christi 
College, Oxford, when " Gaby " (as the then Presi- 
dent, Dr. Shaw, is called, who had been a zealous 
Jacobite), suddenly, on the accession of George the 
First, became a still more zealous patron of the 
interests of the House of Hanover. 

When Gaby possession had got of the Hall, 
He took a survey of the Chapel and all, 
Since that, like the rest, was just ready to fall, 

Which nobody can deny. 

And first he hegan to examine the chest, 

Where he found an old Cushion which gave him distaste ; 

The first of the kind that e'er troubled his rest, 

Which nobody can deny. 

Two letters of Gold on this Cushion were rear'd; 
Two letters of gold orfce by Gaby rever'd, 
But now what was loyalty, treason appear' d : 

Which nobody can deny. 

"J. R. (quoth the Don, in soliloquy bass) 

" See the works of this damnable Jacobite race ! 

" We'll out with the J, and put G in its place : " 

Which nobody can deny. 

And now to erase these letters so rich, 
For scissors and bodkin his fingers did itch, 
For Converts in politics go thorough-stich : 

Which nobody can deny. 

The thing was about as soon done as said, 

Poor J was deposed, and G reigned in his stead ; 

Such a quick revolution sure never was read ! 

Which nobody can deny. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 239 

Then hey for preferment— but how did he stare, 
When convinced and ashamed of not being aware, 
That J stood for Jenxet*, for Raymond the R. 

Which nobody can deny. 

Then beware, all ye priests, from hence I advise, 
How ye choose Christian names for the babes ye baptize, 
For if Gaby don't like'em, he'll pick out their I's. 
Which nobody can deny. 



Terrae Filius relates the following instance of 

THE DANGER OF DRINKING THE KINGS HEALTH. 

Mr. Carty of University College, and Mr. Mea- 
dowcourt of Merton College, Oxford (says this 
writer), were suspended from proceeding to their 
next degree, in 1716, the first for a period of one, 
the second for a period of two years, the latter 
further, not to be permitted " to supplicate for his 
grace, until he confesses his manifold crimes, and 
asks pardon upon his knees, For breaking out to 
that degree of impudence (when the Proctor admo- 
nished him to go home from the tavern at an unsea- 
sonable hour), as to command all the company, with 
a loud voice, to drink King George's health." And, 
strange enough, persisting in his refusal to ask pardon, 
as required, he only ultimately obtained his degree by 
pleading the act of grace of the said King George, 
enacted in favour of those who had been guilty of 
treason, &c. These were, it appears, both Fellows 

* The benefactoi^vho gave the college the Cushion. 



240 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of colleges, and with several others, who were like- 
wise put in the Black~book> were members of a 
society in Oxford, called 

" THE CONSTITUTION CLUB, " 

At a meeting of which it was that the king was 
toasted. 

AMONGST THE CAMBRIDGE CLUBS 

Was one -formed, in 1757, by the Wranglers of that 
year, including the late Professor Waring ; the cele- 
brated reformer Dr. Jebb the munificent founder of 
the Cambridge Hebrew Scholarships ; Mr. Tyrwhitt ; 
and other learned men. It was called The Hyson 
Club, the entertainments being only tea and conver- 
sation. Paley, who joined it after he became tutor 
of Christ College, is thus made to speak of it by a 
writer in the New Monthly Magazine for 1825 :— 
" We had a club at Cambridge of political reformers; 
it was called the Hyson Club, as we met at tea 
time ; and various schemes were discussed among us. 
Jebb's plan was, that the people should meet and 
declare their will; and if the House of Commons 
should pay due attention to the will of the people, 
why, well and good ; if not, the people were to con- 
vey their will into effect. We had no idea that we 
were talking treason. I was always an advocate for 
braibery and corrooption : they raised an outcry 
against me, and affected to think I was not in 
earnest. ' Why/ said I, ' who is so mad as to wish 
to be governed by force ? or who is such a fool as 



NUTS TO CRACK. '24 L 

to expect to be governed by virtue ? There remains, 
then, nothing- but braibery and corrooption.' " No 

particular subjects were proposed for discussion at 
their meetings, but accident or the taste of indivi- 
duals naturally led to topics, such as literary and 
scientific characters might freely discuss. At a 
meeting where the debate was on the justice or 
expediency of making some alteration in the eccle- 
siastical constitution of the country, for the relief 
of tender consciences, Dr. Gordon, of Emmanuel 
College, late Frecentor of Lincoln, vehemently op- 
posed the arguments of Dr. Jebb, then tutor of Peter 
House, who supported the affirmative, by exclaiming, 
" You mean, Sir, to impose upon us a new church 
government." " You are mistaken," said Paley, 
who was present, " Jebb only wants to ride his own 
horse, not to force you to get up behind him." 



THE RETROGRADATION AMONGST MASTERS. 
TUTORS, AND SCHOLARS. 

Discipline, like every thing else characteristic of 
our elder institutions, has for some years been fast 
giving way in our universities. Statutes are per- 
mitted to slumber unheeded, as not fitted to the 
present advanced state of society ; and in colleges 
where it would, as late as the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, have been almost a crime to have 
been seen in hall or chapel without a white cravat 
on, scholars now strut in black ones, " unawed by 
imposition' or a fine. I can remember the time 
when this inroad upon decent appearance first begun, 
n 



242 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

and when the Dean of our college put forth his strong 
arm, and insisted on white having the preference. 
Men then used to wear their black till they came to 
the hall or chapel door, then take them off, and 
walk in with none at all, and again twist them round 
the neck, heedless whether the tie were Brummell 
or not, on issuing forth from Prayers or Commons. 
Like the Whigs, they have by perseverance carried 
their point, and strut about in black, wondering what 
they shall next attempt. 



THERE IS AN ON-DIT, 

That at the time Dr. W became Master of St. 

John's College, Cambridge, the tutors used to oblige 
(and it was a custom for) the scholars to stand, cap in 
hand (if any tutor entered a court where they might 
be passing), till the said tutor disappeared. This 
was so rigorously enforced, that the scholars com- 
plained to the new master, and he desired the tutors 
to relax the custom. This order they refused to 
comply with. Upon this the Doctor took down from 
a shelf a copy of the College Statutes, and coolly 
read to them a section, where the fellows of the 
same were enjoined to stand, cap in hand, till the 
master passed by, wherever they met him ; and the 
Doctor, it is added, insisted upon its observance, on 
pain of ejection, till at length the tutors gave way. 



THE WORCESTER GOBLIN. 

Foote the comedian was, in his youthful days, a 
student of Worcester College, Oxford, under the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 243 

care of the Provost, Dr. Gower. The Doctor wi 
learned and amiable man, but a pedant. The latter 
characteristic was soon seized upon by the young 
satirist, as a source whereon to turn his irresistible 
passion for wit and humour. The church at this 
time belonging to Worcester College, fronted a lane 
where cattle were turned out to graze, and (as was 
then the case in many towns, and is still in some 
English villages) the church porch was open, with 
the bell-ropes suspended in the centre. Foote tied 
a wisp of hay to one of them, and this was no 
sooner scented by the cattle at night, than it was 
seized upon as a dainty morsel. Tug, tug, went one 
and all, and "ding-dong " went the bell at midnight, 
to the astonishment of the Doctor, the sexton, the 
whole parish, and the inmates of the College. The 
young wag kept up the joke for several successive 
nights, and reports of ghosts, goblins, and frightful 
visions, soon filled the imagination of old and young 
with alarm, and many a simple man and maiden 
whisked past the scene of midnight revel ere the 
moon had "filled her horns," struck with fear and 
trembling. The Doctor suspected some trick. He, 
accordingly, engaged the Sexton to watch with him for 
the detection of the culprit. They had not long lain 
hid, under favour of a dark night, when " ding dong" 
went the bell again : both rushed from their hiding 
places, and the sexton commenced the attack by 
seizing the cow's tail, exclaiming, " 'Tis a gentleman 
commoner, — I have him by the tail of his gown ! n 
The Doctor approached on the opposite tack, and 
seized a horn with both hands, crying, " No, no, you 
r 2 



244 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

blockhead, 'tis the postman, — I have caught the 
rascal by his blowing-horn! " and both bawled lustily 
for assistance, whilst the cow kicked and flung- to get 
free ; but both held fast till lights were procured, 
when the real offender stood revealed, and the laugh 
of the whole town was turned upon the Doctor and 
his fellow-mg-fe-errant, the Sexton. 



RECORDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE TRIPOSES. 

The Spoon, in the words of Lord Byron's Don 
Juan, 

" The name by which we Cantabs please, 



To dub the last of honours in degrees," 

is the annual subject for University mirth, and if not 
the fountain, is certainly the very foundation of 
Cambridge University honours : without the spoon, 
not a man in the Tripos would have a leg to stand 
upon : in fact, it would be a top without a bottom, 
minus the spoon. Yet " this luckless wight," says 
the compiler of the Cambridge Tart, is annually an 
universal butt and laughing-stock of the whole 
Senate-House. He is the last of those men who 
take honours of his year, and is called a "junior 
optime," and notwithstanding his being superior to 
them all, the lowest of the 'Ot noXkoi, or Gregarious 
Undistinguished Bachelors, think themselves entitled 
to shoot their pointless arrows against the " wooden 
spoon," and to reiterate the perennial remark, that, 
" wranglers " are born with golden spoons in their 
mouths; "senior optimes" with silver spoons; 
"junior optimes" with wooden spoons, and the *Oi 



NUTS TO CRACK. 

.oXXot with leaden spoons in their mouths. It 
may be here, however, observed, that it is unjust 
towards the undistinguished bachelors to say that 
"he (the spoon) is superior to them all." He is 
generally a man who has read hard, id est, has i 
his best, whilst the undistinguished bachelors, 
well known, include many men of considerable, even 
superior talents, but having- no taste for mathematics, 
have merely read sufficient to get a degree; conse- 
quently have not done their best. The muse has 
thus invoked 

THE WOODEN SPOON. 

When sage Mathesis calls her sons to fame, 

The Senior Wrangler bears the highest name. 

In academic honour richly deckt, 

He challenges from all deserved respect. 

But, if to visit friends he leaves his gown, 

And flies in haste to cut a dash in town, 

The wrangler's title, little understood, 

Suggests a man in disputation good ; 

And those of common talents cannot raise, 

Their humble thoughts a wrangler's mind to praise. 

Such honours to an Englishman soon fade, 

Like laurel wreaths, the victor's brows that shade. 

No such misfortune has that man to fear, 

Whom fate ordains the last in fame's career ; 

His honours fresh remain, and e'en descend 

To soothe his family, or chosen friend. 

And while he lives, he wields the boasted prize, 

Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise ; 

Displays in triumph Ins distinguished boon, 

The solid honours of the Wooden Spoon ! 

That many have borne off this prize who might 
have done better, is well known too. One learned 



246 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Cantab in that situation felt so assured of his fate, 
when it might have been more honourable, had he 
been gifted with prudence and perseverance, that on 
the morning* when it is customary to give out the 
honours, in the Senate House, in their order of 
merit, he provided himself with a large wooden spoon*, 
and when there was a call from the gallery, for " the 
spoon " (for then the Undergraduates were allowed 
to express their likes and dislikes publicly, a custom 
now suppressed), he turned the shafts of ridicule 
aside by thrusting the emblem of his honours up 
high over his head, — an act that gained him no slight 
applause. Another Cantab, of precisely the same 
grade as to talent, who was second in the classical 
tripos of his year, gave a supper on the occasion of 
the spoon being awarded to him, which commenced 
with soup, each man being furnished with a pondrous 
wooden spoon to lap it with. Another, now a Fellow 
of Trinity College, who more than once bore off the 
Porson prize, being in this place of honour, a wag 
nailed a large wooden spoon to his door. Hundreds 
of other tricks have been put upon the spoon, next 
to whom are — 

THE POLL; OR, *OI IIOAAOI: 

Which, said the great Bentley, in a sermon preached 
before the University of Cambridge, on the 5th of 
November, 1715, "is a known expression in profane 
authors, opposed sometimes, tols o-ofyois, to the wise, 
and ever denotes the most, and generally the meanest 
of mankind." ie Besides the mirth demoted cha- 
racter," (the wooden spoon), says the writer first 



NUTS TO CRACK. 247 

quoted, there " are always a few, a chosen few, a 
degree lower than the c Ot noXkoi, constantly written 
down alphabetically, who serve to exonerate the 
1 wooden spoon,' in part, from the ignominy of the day; 
and these undergo various epithets, according to their 
accidental number. If there was but one, he was 
called Dion, who carried all his learning about him 
without the slightest inconvenience. If there were 
two, they were dubbed the Scipios ; Damon and 
Pythias ; Hercules and Atlas ; Castor and Pollux. 
If three, they were ad libitum, the three Graces ; or 
the three Furies ; the Magi; or Noah, Daniel, and 
Job. If seven, they were the seven Wise Men ; or the 
Seven Wonders of the World. If nine, they were 
the unfortunate Suitors of the Muses. If twelve, 
they became the Apostles. If thirteen, either they 
deserved a round dozen, or, like the Americans, 
should bear thirteen stripes on their coat and arms. 
Lastly, they were sometimes styled constant quanti- 
ties, and Martyrs ; or the thirteenth was designated 
the least of the Apostles; and, should there be a 
fourteenth, he was unworthy to be called an Apostle /" 
An unknown pen has immortalised the *CU 7roAAoi, 
by the following — 

ODE TO THE UNAMBITIOUS AND UNDISTINGUISHED 
BACHELORS. 

" Post tot naufragia tutus.'" — Virg. 

Thrice happy ye, through toil and dangers past, 

Who rest upon that peaceful shore, 

Where all your fagging is no more, 
And gain the long-expected port at last. 



248 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Yours are the sweets, the ravishing delights, 
To doze and snore upon your noontide beds ; 

No chapel-bell your peaceful sleep affrights, 
No problems trouble now your empty heads. 

Yet, if the heavenly muse is not mistaken, 
And poets say the muse can rightly guess, 
I fear, full many of you must confess 

That you have barely sav'd your bacon. 

Amidst th' appalling problematic war, 

Where dire equations frown' d in dread array, 
Ye never strove to find the arduous way, 

To where proud Granta's honours shine afar. 

"Within that dreadful mansion have ye stood, 
When moderators glared with looks uncivil, 

How often have ye d — d their souls, their blood, 
And wished all mathematics at the devil ! 

But ah ! what terrors on that fatal day 

Your souls appall'd, when, to your stupid gaze. 
Appear' d the biquadratic's darken' d maze, 

And problems ranged in horrible array ! 

Hard was the task, I ween, the labour great, 

To the wish'd port to find your uncouth way — 
How did ye toil, and fag, and fume, and fret, 

And — what the bashful muse would blush to say. 
But now your painful terrors all are o'er — 

Cloth'd in the glories of a full-sleev'd gown, 

Ye strut majestically up and down, 
And now ye fag, and now ye fear no more. 

But although many men of this class are not gifted 
with that species of perception suited to mathematical 
studies, however desirable it may be that the mind 
should be subject to that best of all correctives, the 
abstruse sciences, they are often possessed of what 
may he justly denominated " great talents." A 
remarkable instance of this fact was manifested in the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 249 

person of a late fellow of Trinity (now no longer so — 
"for conscience-sake" ) , who wrote a tragedy whilst still 
a boy of sixteen or seventeen, that was produced at 
Covent Garden with success, obtained the only vacant 
Craven scholarship in his freshman's year (alv 
considered a high test of classical ability), and carried 
off other classical university prizes. Yet he, when 
he came to be examined for his degree, though he 
sat and wrote out whole books of Homer from me- 
mory, he was unable to go through the first problem 
of Euclid : for when told that he must do something 
in mathematics, he wrote down, after a fashion, the 
A ? s and b's, but without describing the figure, a 
necessary accompaniment. Of the omission he was 
reminded by the examiner — " Oh ! the picture, you 
mean," was his reply, and drawing a triangle of 
a true isosceles cut, instead of an equilateral one, 
he added thereto, ct la heraldique, by way of sup- 
porters, two ovals of equal height, which completed 
his only mathematical effort. His learning and 
talents, however, procured him his degree and a 
fellowship. To others, mathematics are an inex- 
haustible source of delight, and such a mind it was 
that penned The Address to Mathematics, in " The 
Cambridge Tart/' beginning — 

" With thee, divine Mathesis, let me live ! 
Effuse source of evidence and truth I " 

Porsox gave a singular proof of his " fondi 
for Algebra," says the Sexagenarian, by comp< 
an equation in Greek, the original being compi 
in one line. When resident in college, he would 
frequently amuse himself by sending to his friends 



250 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

scraps of Greek of a like character, for solution. 
The purport of one was, " Find the value of nothing" 
The next time he met his friend, he addressed him 
with, " Well, have you succeeded in finding- the value 
of nothing?" "Yes," replied his friend. "What 
is it ? " " Sixpence I gave the gyp for bringing your 
note/' was the rejoinder. 

The late Professor Vince meeting a fellow of St. 
John's College, Cambridge, the next morning after 
a high wind had blown down several of the fine old 
trees in the walks, some of three centuries' standing, 
he was addressed with, " a terrible storm last night, 
Mr. Professor." " Yes," he replied, " it was 

A RARE MATHEMATICAL WIND." 

" Mathematical wind ! " exclaimed the other, " how 
so, Doctor ? " " Why you see it has extracted a 
great many roots ! " A Johnian one day eating 
apple-pie by the side of a Johnian fellow, an inve- 
terate punster, he facetiously observed, 

"HE WAS RAISING APPLE-PIE TO THE T th POWER." 

Another fellow walking down the hall, after din- 
ner, and slipping some distance on smooth flags^ 
looked over his shoulder and observed to one follow- 
ing him — »* An inclined plane? 

Another Cantab, when a student of Bene't, now 
rector of H — , Suffolk, thus sung his song of " divine 
Mathesis :" — 

Let mathematicians and geometricians 
Talk of circles' and triangles' charms, 

The figure I prize is a girl with bright eyes, 
And the circle that's formed by her arms. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 25] 

THE CLASSICAL TRIPOS AND THE WOODEN \\ '!:; 

This class of Cambridge honours, for which 
none can become candidates but those who !. 
attained mathematical distinction, was instituted 
by a Grace of the Senate, in 1822. As its title 
implies, it is divided into three classes, 
first examination took place in 1824, when the 
Cantabs were saved the labour of gestation, by the 
last man in the third class being named Wedgwood, 
which was transposed by some wag- to wooden wedge 
— and by that soubriquet, equivalent to the woe 
sjioon, all men so circumstanced are now designated 
in the colloquial phraseology of the University. It 
is but justice to Mr. W. to add, however, that he 
also attained the high mathematical distinction of 
eighth wrangler of his year. By the same decree 
of the Senate 

A PREVIOUS EXAMINATION 
Was established at Cambridge (answering to the 
Oxford " Little-go"), by which all students are re- 
quired to undergo an examination in Classics and 
Divinity, in the Lent term of the second year of 
their residence. The successful candidates are 
divided into two classes only: but there is always a 
select few who are allowed to pass, after an extra 
trial of skill: these are lumped at the end, and have 
been designated " Elegant Extracts." Some 
furnished Jackson's Oxford Journal with this 

SYLLOGISTIC EXERCISE FOR THE LITTLE-GO MEN. 

No cat has two tails. 

A cat has one tail more than no cat. 

Ergo — A cat has three tails. 



252 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

The following song (in the true spirit of a non- 
reading man) is from the pen of a learned seceding 
Cantab, the late Dr. John Disney, who, after gra- 
duating at Peter- House, Cambridge, LL.B., and for 
some time officiating as a minister of the Established 
Church, resigned a giving " for conscience sake," and 
closed his career as Minister of the Unitarian Chapel, 
in Essex-street, Strand : — 

Come, my good College lads ! and attend to to my lays, 
I'll show you the folly of poring o'er books ; 

For all you get by it is mere empty praise, 
Or a poor meagre fellowship, and sour looks. 

Chorus. 
Then lay by your books, lads, and never repine ; 

And cram not your attics, 

With dry mathematics, 
But moisten your clay with a bumper of wine. 

The first of mechanics was old Archimedes, 

Who play'd with Rome's ships as we'd play cup and ball, 

To play the same game I can't see where the need is, 
Or why we should fag mathematics at all. 

Then lay by your books, lads, &c. 

Great Newton found out the binomial law, 

To raise X + Y to the power of B ; 
Found the distance of planets that he never saw, 

And we most probably never shall see. 

Then lay by your books, lads, &c. 

Let Whiston and Ditton star-gazing enjoy, 

And taste all the sweets mathematics can give ; 

Let us for our time find a better employ, 

And knowing life's sweets, let us learn how to live. 
Then lay by your books lads, &c. 

These men ex absurdo, conclusions may draw, 
Perpetual motion they never could find ; 



NUTS TO CRACK. 

Not one of the set, lads, can balance a straw, 
And longitude seeking is hunting the wind. 

Then lay by your books, lads, &c. 

If we study at all, let us study the means 

To make ourselves friends, and to keep them when made ; 
Learn to value the blessings kind heaven ordains, 
To make others happy, let that be our trade. 
Finale. 
Let each day be better than each day before, 
Without pain or sorrow, 
To-day or to-morrow, 
May we live, my good lads, to see many days more. 



A DREADFUL FIT OF RHEUMATISM. 

Two Cantabs, brothers, named Whiter, one the 
learned author of Etymologicum Magnum, the other 
an amiable divine ; both were remarkable, the one for 
being- six, the other about five feet in height. The 
taller was eccentric and often absent in his habits. 
the other a wag-. Both were invited to the same 
party, and the taller being first ready, slipped on the 
coat of the shorter, and wended his way into a 
crowded room of fashionables, to whom his eccen- 
tricities being familiar, they were not much surprised 
at seeing- him encased in a coat, the tail of which 
scarcely reached his hips, whilst the sleeves ran short 
of his elbows; in fact, it was a perfect strait jm 
and he had not been long- seated before he began to 
complain to everybody that he was suffering from a 
dreadful fit of rheumatism. One or two suggested 
the tightness of his coat as the cause of his pain ; but 
he remained rheumatic in spite of them, till bis 
brother's approach threw the whole party into a tit 



-54 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

of convulsive laughter, as he came sailing into the 
room, his coat-tails sweeping- the room, en traine, 
and his arms performing- the like service on either 
side, as he exclaimed, to his astonished brother^ 
" Why, Bob, you have got my coat on ! " Bob then 
discovered that his friends' hints bordered on the 
truth, and the two exchanged garments forthwith, 
to the amusement of all present. 



DR. PARR AN INGRATE. 

The Doctor was once staying with the late great and 
good Mr.Roscoe,when many of the most distinguished 
Whigs were his guests also, out of compliment to whom 
the Doctor forbore to indulge in his customary after- 
dinner pipe. At length, when wine and words had cir- 
culated briskly, and twilight began to set in, he insisted 
upon mounting to his own room to have a whirl solus. 
Having groped his way up stairs, somewhat exhausted 
with the effort, he threw himself into what he took 
to be an arm-chair. Suddenly the ears of the party 
were assailed with awful moans and groans, as of some 
one in tribulation. Mr. Roscoe hastened to learn 
the cause, and no sooner reached the stairs' foot, 
than he heard the Doctor calling lustily for his man 
John, adding, in more supplicatory acents, " Will 
nobody help a Christian man in distress ! WTil 
nobody help a Christian man in distress ! " Mr. 
Roscoe mounted to the rescue, but could not forbear 
a hearty laugh, as he beheld Dr. P. locked in the 
close embrace of a large old-fashioned grate, which 
he had mistaken for an arm-chair, and from which 
he was in vain struggling to relieve himself. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 



MOX DIEU— LE DIABLE. 



When Robert the Devil was first produced at 
Paris, and the opera going folk were on the qui 
vive for the promised appearance of the Prince of 
Darkness, a certain Cantab, the facial line of whose 
countenance bordered on the demoniacal, went to 
see him make his bow to a Parisian audience, and 
happened to enter the same loge from whence a 
Parisian belle was anxiously watching the entree of 
Monsieur Le Robert. Attracted by the creaking of 
the loge door, on suddenly turning her head in its 
direction, she caught a glimpse of our Cambridge 
friend, and was so forcibly struck with the expre— 
of his countenance, that she went into hysterics, 
exclaiming, " Mon Dieu ! Le Diable ! M 



SOME CRITICAL CIVILITIES, 

The famous editor of Demosthenes, John Taylor, 
D.D., being accused of saying Bishop Warburton 
was no scholar, denied it, but owned he al\ 
thought so. Upon this Warburton called him " The 
Learned Dunce." When Parr, in the British Critic 
for 1795, called Porson " a giant in literature," and 
" a prodigy in intellect," the Professor took it in 
dudgeon, and said, " What right has any one to tell 
the height of a man he cannot measure?" A Dutch 
commentator having called Bentley " Egregius" and 
" 'O train," " What right (said the Doctor) has that 
fellow to quote me ; does he think that I will a ' 
pearls in his dunghill?" Baxter, in the 
edition of his Horace, said the great Bentley s 



256 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

to him " rather to have buried Horace under a heap 
of rubbish than to have illustrated him." And 

BENTLEY SAID OF JOSHUA BARNES, 

Who, to please his religious wife, composed a Greek 
ode to prove King Solomon wrote Homer's Iliad, 
that he was 

" "Ovos 7rp6s Xvpav — Asinus ad Lyram : " 

Joshua replied, that they who said this of him had 
not understanding enough to be poets, or wanted the 
f O vovs irpbs \vpav» 



SIR BUSICK AND SIR ISAAC AGAIN. 

I have before spoken of these two Cambridge 
knights and rival physicians, but there yet remains to 
be told of them, that on their meeting each other, 
perchance, in the street or the senate house, the 
latter addressing his rival in an ironical speech of 
condolence, to the effect, < ; I regret to hear you are 
ill, Sir Busick." " Sir, I sick ! " (Sir Isaac) retorted 
the wit, " I never was better in my life ! " Many of 
my readers have no doubt seen the anecdote of Vol- 
taire's building a church, and causing to be engraved 
on the front thereof, the vain record, 

" Voltaire ereocit hoc Templum Deo."" 

A similar spirit seized a Mr. Cole of Cambridge, 
who left money either to erect the church or the 
steeple of St. Clement's, in Bridge-street, of that 
town, on condition that his name was placed on the 
front of it. The condition was complied with to the 
letter, thus, by the tasteful judgment of some Cam- 
bridge wag:— 



NUTS TO CRACK. 257 



COLE: DEl'M. 



An admirably turned pun, which, I may add, for the 
benefit of my English readers, signifies, Worship 
God. I have already noticed the mathematical 
" Pons Asinorum" of our mother of Cambridge. 
One of her waggish sons has likewise contrived, 
for their amusement, a classical Pons Asinorum^ 
known as 

THE FRESHMAN'S PUZZLE. 

I knew a Trinity man of absent habits, who 
actually, after residing two years in college, having 
occasion to call upon an old school fellow, a scholar 
of Bene't, {id est, Corpus Christi College), before 
it was rebuilt*) was so little acquainted with the 
localities of the university, that he was obliged to 
inquire his way, though not two hundred yards from 
Trinity. Such a man could scarcely be expected to 
know, what most cantabs do, that Qui Church, which 
is situated about four miles from Cambridge, " rears 
its head" in rural simplicity in the midst of the 
open fields, seemingly without the " bills of mor- 
tality ; " for not so much as a cottage keeps it in 
countenance. This gave occasion for a Cambridge 
wag to invent the following puzzle: — 

" Templum Qui stat in agris," 

Which has caused many a freshman a sleepless 
night, who, ignorant of the status Qui, has racked 
his brains to translate the above, minus a Qi <>i> 
pro Qui. 

s 



258 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

A SLY HUMOURIST. 

Edmund Gurnay, B. D., Fellow of Corpus Christi 
College, Cambridge, in 1601, was a sly humourist. 
The Master had a great desire to get the garden to 
himself, and, either by threats or persuasion, get 
all the rest of the fellows to resign their keys ; but 
upon his application to Gurnay, he absolutely 
refused to part with his right. " I have got the 
other fellows' keys," quoth the master. " Then 
pray, master, keep them, and you and I will shut 
them all out." " Sir, I expect to be obliged ; am 
not I your master ? " " Yes, Sir (said Gurnay) ; and 
am not I your fellow?" At another time he was 
complained of to the bishop, for refusing to wear the 
surplice, and was cited to appear before him, and 
told, that he expected he should always wear it ; 
whereupon, he came home, and rode a journey with 
it on. This reminds me of 

A STORY OF A NOBLE OXONIAN, 

Then Mr. afterwards Lord Lyttleton, to whom the 
epithet of " Reprobus" they say, might have been 
applied with more justice than it was to the famous 
Saxon Bishop, St. Wulstan, by the monks of his 
day. Humour was his lordship's natural element, 
and whilst resident at Christ Church, Oxford, 
he dressed himself in a bright scarlet hunting 
coat, top-boots and spurs, buckskin breeches, &c, 
and putting his gown over all, presented himself to 
the head of his college, who was a strict disciplina- 
rian. " Good God ! Mr. Lyttleton," exclaimed the 



NUTS TO CRACK. 259 

Dean, "this is not a dress fit to be seen in a college." 
" I beg- your pardon," said the wag, " I thought 
myself in perfect costume ! Will you he pleased 
to tell me how I should dress, Mr. Dean?" The 
dean was at this time Vice-Chancellor, and happened 
to be in his robes of office. " You should dress 
like me, Sir," said the Doctor, referring to his black 
coat, tights, knee-buckles, and silk stockings. Mr. 
Lyttleton thanked him and left, but to the Doctor's 
astonishment, he the next day presented himself at 
the Deanery, drest in Vice-Chancellor's robes, &c, 
an exact fac-simile of the dean himself, and when 
rebuked coolly observed, that he had followed the 
dean's directions to the letter. 

IT IS RELATED OF THE SAME OXFORD WAG, 

That having a party to supper with him, and being 
anxious to play the Dean some harmless trick, as 
his delight was to annoy him, he seized a potato off 
the dish, stuck it on a fork, and bolted off with it to 
the deanery, followed by some of his boon companions. 
This was at one, two, or three in the morning, when 
all the rest of the college, and of course the Dean, 
were locked in the embrace of Somnus. Mr. Lyt- 
tleton, however, resolving to have his joke, began 
thundering away at the Dean's knocker, till, roused 
at last, he put his head out at the window, and in a 
rage demanded the wants of the applicant. " Do 
you think, Mr. Dean," said Mr. L., holding up to hi*> 
view the forked potato with the coolest effrontery 
imaginable; "Do you think, Mr. Dean, that thii 
is a potato fit to put upon a gentleman's table : 
s 



260 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

Dr. VVestphalinge, Canon of Christ Church, after- 
wards Bishop of Hereford, and one of the Commis- 
sioners sent to Oxford to abolish Popish practices* 
by Elizabeth, says Bishop Godwyn, 

WAS A PERSON OF SUCH CONSUMMATE GRAVITY. 

" That, during a familiar acquaintance with him for 
many years, he never once saw him laugh," — "Nun- 
quam in visum viderim solutum" As an antidote to 
such eternal gravity, I can scarcely do better than 
append the following Aristophanic morsel, attributed 
to Porson, and cry, " Hold, enough ! " Chorus of 
Printers Imps, — " Enough ! " — 

INVENTORY OF GOODS FOR SALE. 

BXdyiajTOL, tviXtol, $vo ft6k(TT€p€s, rj8e 7ri\(D@rjp 
Kai eV fiarpeo'O'ov, Kai Xcvkov koXlko Kiprov, 
Kai fxia Kap7T€Trr}, kcll ^€o~tov paoyavoiov 
"Eis KOvirrep7ravvos, kcll yparbv Kacrro <nhr)pov 
*H$e dvco fiovpoi, dvo ra/3Aoi, kcll dvo birron. 
TovcWoi §(D(T€i>y hcocrev (pavKOi re, vi(f)ol re 
*2av(j7Tav kcll crrevirav, (ttt'lttov kol apaKOv lclkov 
Tpcdlpoi/, <p€~ip7rav, royyoi, (jievdrjp re, 7TOKi)p re, 
KoTnrrjp kol (Boikrjp kol KiXkrjp rjde (rvekToft. 
Kai eV ftao-Krjrov Kara ftaKxovs, Ka\ dvo ttottv^ 
Kai cv $pi7T7rLV7rav, Ki>\€pes dvo, kol aaXafxdvdrjp 
Kai dvo 7r**7rorrot_, aTnTTivizav , ttUtt re ro /3a^a>. 

—ECHO—" NOT ENOUGH. 1 ' 

There are still many good things to tell : amongst 
them is a whim of one of the Readers of Barton, 
Berks, who happened to be a gentleman-commoner 



NUTS TO CRACK. 261 

at Christ Church at the time a late Dean issued an 
order, during a hard frost, that no undergrad was 
to indulge in the exhilarating and customary sport 
of skaiting upon the ice that covered the reser- 
voir in " Tom Quod." The order came upon the 
fraternity like a thunder-clap, at the very moment 
some scores were preparing for the sport ; amongst 
them was Reade, of that ilk, a wag, and he resolved 
to pay the Dean off, even at the hazard of being paid 
off himself. He accordingly stuck up a notice on 
the margin of the ice to the effect, that " no one 
was to skate there, as the Dean intended publicly 
to enjoy that sport at ten o'clock the next day." 
The College smelt a rat, and at the hour named, a 
large number of spectators were collected, when Mr. 
Reade, whose rooms faced the reservoir, dressed in a 
wig and gown, a la Dean, which he had procured 
ad interim, approached, be-skated, with all the gra- 
vity of his superior, and, to the no small amusement 
of those present, cut such capers in his skates, that 
the whole were in a continuous roar of laughter. 
Some have indulged in more practical jokes. One 
Christ-Church man, that was 



THE SOX OF HIS GRACE OF W_ 



Procured a pot of coarse red paint, with which he 
and others, over-night, coated all the doors of the 
dignitaries, &c, to the no small surprise of some, 
and the indignation of others, it appears ; for, on 
dit, it was for this trick, that he and Fitz — e were 
rusticated. Another Christ- Church man, versed 



262 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

in the heraldic art, astonished the dignitaries by one 
night painting a humorous coat of arras upon each of 
their doors. Once on a time, the head of a college 
in Cambridge having obtained the soubriquet of 

THE OLD WOMAN, 

One of the wags of the college, in a frolicsome 
humour, took down a board at a young ladies' school, 
upon which was inscribed, " a Seminary for Young 
Ladies ;" and having hung it up, over-night, at the 
top of the college gates, it remained there some time 
before it was discovered by the college officials, to 
the no small amusement of the passers-by. There 
is 

A TALE OF AN OXONIAN, 

Who might have taken for his motto — 

" I was a -wild and extravagant youth, 
When I was an Oxford scholar ;" 

for, after having wasted his fortune, being obliged 
to quit the University, he is said to have turned his 
face towards Oxford, and exclaimed — 

1 Farewell, Oxford ! farewell to thee, 
For thou hast been the ruin of me ! ' 

Upon which his man John, who was by his side, 
seized with the spirit of rhyme, said, or sung — 

1 Farewell, Oxford ! farewell to thee, 
For thy tow'rs are longer than my knife.' 

6 That's no rhyme, John/ exclaimed the master. 
' Save your presence, but it is,' was the reply. 



NUTS TO CRACK. t>63 

6 How so ? ' quoth his master. ' Even thus/ replied 
John — 

4 Farewell, Oxford ! farewell to thee, 
For thy tow'rs are longer than my K-N-I-F-E.' 



During- the time the witty Dr. South was Public 
Orator at Oxford, he was one day presenting- a dis- 
tinguished military character for an honorary degree, 
when the man of war, accidentally turning his back 
upon the Doctor, at the instant he uttered the usual 
exordium — 

u PrcBsento vobis hunc bellicosissimus" 

he immortalised the incident by facetiously adding — 

11 Qui nunquam antia t er giver satus est." 



A fellow of New College, serving a church a short 
distance from Oxford, was obliged to pass by a farm- 
yard where a bull was kept, and it invariably annoyed 
our divine by bellowings and threats of attack. At 
last he complained to the owner of the annoyance. 
1 Laud blessi/ said Hodge, i he not hurty. Him 
always yaws any body in black.' 

ANOTHER OXFORD BULL 

Originated in the fact of one of the Proctors being 
so named at the time his Majesty of Belgium, then 
Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, had the degree of 
D.C.L. publicly conferred upon him. The Prince 
and a great concourse of spectators, including many 



264 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

ladies who thronged to the theatre to witness the 
ceremony and catch a glimpse of the royal personage, 
were already present, when Mr. Bull entered in his 
official capacity, and having rendered himself unpo- 
pular with the juniors of the University, a buzz 
instantly rose from a thousand reproachful tongues 
of 'A Bull! diBulir * Where? where?' screamed 
several ladies at once, to the no small amusement 
of those in the secret. Fortunately nothing worse 
happened, and the Prince was dubbed a Doctor of 
Laws. 



A late fellow of Merton College, Oxford, named 
Brown, had many years been in that predicament, 
waiting for a college living, during which he was 
known to have entertained an attachment for a certain 
lady, but neither possessed sufficient of this world's 
goods to warrant matrimony, minus preferment. It 
had long been his daily practice, in the common- 
room, to toast this favourite belle, but omitting it on 
one occasion, after he was D.D., " Why, Doctor," 
exclaimed the Fellows, one and all, " you have not 
toasted your favourite to-day ! How is that ? " — 
" Why," replied our D.D., " I have toasted her long 
and often, but it is now time to remit the custom ; 
for, do what I will, 

I SHALL NEVER MAKE HER BROWN!" 



Another Merton wag was the late Warden, Dr. 
Berdmore, of whom it is said, that having invited 



NUTS TO CRACK. 

the late Public Orator, Dr. Crowe, and Dr. Rooke, 
of his own college, to his table, he ordered his ser- 
vant to prepare dinner for company. " For how 
many?" asked the servant. " Let me see/' said our 
learned wag ; " there's a Rooke, and a Crowe, and 

ONE BIRD MORE." 



The same wit was standing at the entrance to 
Queen's College, Oxon, in company with the late 
Provost, Dr. Septimus Collinson, when the wife of 
his barber, or hair-dresser (there are no barbers 
now-a-days), stumbled, and dropped on her knees 
near the two D.D.'s, who helped her up. When 
Richard, the barber, came next day to the lodge to 
shave him — " So your wife had a drop too much 
yesterday, Richard," said the Doctor. " My wife 
take a drop too much!" exclaimed the barber, in a 
rage ; " I'd have you to know, Doctor, that she is 
never guilty of any such practices ! " adding, in an 
under tone, that he was independent, and would not 
again come to shave our D.D. to be insulted. " But 
I say she had a drop too much, Richard I" added the 
was:. This was too much for Richard, and he was 
about to rush out of the room in a rage, at what he 
called an insult — when, the Doctor having worked 
him to a lather, explained the fall of the day pre- 
vious, and Richard himself was obliged to acknow- 
ledge that his wife had a drop too much ! 



266 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

THE RUSTICATED CANTAB. 

From a MS. Drama, entitled M Trinity College, Cambridge:' 

Act I. Scene IV. Trumpington Street. 

Enter — Gyp (Flybynight), disguised in the cap and gown of 
his master, Mr. Clarence Fitzroy, of Trinity College. — 
(Sings). 

I. 
Here's my master and I, Sirs, 
Are out on the sly, Sirs, 

In spite of the Bigwigs and Doctors ; 
We'll ogle all the town, 
As w r e strut up and down, 

And we'll thus snap our fingers at the Proctors : 
I'm his servant of all-work, 
And he fags me like a Turk ; 

Running here, 

Running there, 
Round the town and everywhere ; 

Night and day, 

No delay, — 
* Flybynight, you must away — ' 
Then I take a billet-doux 
To Miss Fanny from her beau, 
Whilst he ogles, a Vamour, 
With some dozen or a score : 
Jenny, Susan, Rachel, Betty, 
Polly, Tabby, Carry, Kitty— 

1 How do ? '— ■ How do ? ' 

1 Ah, ah ! 's that you?' 
One smiles again, but t'other looks blue. 
Then he rambles here and there, 
Without or either fear or care — 
Cut the Tutor, cut the Proctor, 
Master, Fellows, Dean, and Doctor, 

And kick a boring dun down stairs. 



NUTS TO CRACK. 



The next morning, at his door, 
Comes of rat, tat, tats, a score ; 

And he cries, * Come in ! ' — their admission ; 
When in pops a saucy Gyp, 
With a simper on his lip — 

1 You must get Sir, this imposition.'' 
1 Sir, the Master says he sees 
That your Honour doesn't please 

To keep off, 

But you scoff 
As you cross the green, and laugh, 

Morn and night, 

In his sight, 
Which he thinks is not quite right.' — 
; Sir, the Dean wish you to see 
Before his chapel — say at three.' — 
1 Sir, the Tutor ; '— < Sir, the Proctor ; '— 
1 Sir, I've brought these from the Doctor ; 
Lotions, mixtures, draughts, or bolus.' — 
c Faggots,' roars he, ' leave me solus ! 

Zounds ! the D 1 ! 

What a cavil ! 
All uncivil rout and revel ! ' 
Then he gets a dormiat, 
Or sends me for an cegrotat. 
Then about his room he capers, 
Swears he'll burn his books and papers, 
And votes all the Bigwigs bears. 

in. 
Then he orders horse and clothes, 
And to Chesterton he goes ; 

Or he rides to the Botiom, or Xewmarket, 
Where he bets upon a race ; 
Or he goes to meet a chace, 

And he shouts him, ' Tantivi ! hark, hark it ! 
T 



268 OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 

He gets back to Hall to dine, 
Then lie goes abroad to wine; 

Drink and sing, 

Like a king, 
Whilst the tiime is on the wing : 

Sure as fates, 

Cuts the gates, 
Which the Dean as surely rates : 
Then he manages, somehow, 
With Town and Gown to get a row, 
By which he cause his luckless Doctor 
To be posted by the Proctor ; 
Then, the Tutors, they convene him ; 
Then they would, but cannot, screen him : 

Master, Proctor, 

Senior, Doctor, 
Dean, and Fellows, all so shock'd are — 
1 Sir, unless some part's withheld, 
You must from College be expelled I ' 

They deplore his situation, 
But decree him rustication 
Sine die, till he mends his ways. 



Since he must be off next day 
From his College straight away, 

He books him a place in the Tally ; 
Then he gives a spread at eve, 
Of his chums to take his leave, 

And his spirits just a little to rally. 
He arrives, next day, at four, 
At the George and the Blue-Boar, 

Where he stays 

A few days, 
At the sights of Town to gaze ; 

Goes to see 

Madam V , 



NUTS TO CRACK. 209 

At her Wycli-street snuggery : 
Gets, most likely, in a row, 
And is had up next day at Bow, 
By the police, or a watchman, 
Who're the very de'ils to catch men ; 
Then Sir Richard * gives him lecture, 
Like a serio-tragic actor — 

Says he'll bail him, 

Naught avail him, 
At the Sessions jury nail him, 
Spite of counsel, two or three, 
And lawyers with retaining fee, — 
'Cause he thrash' d the new policemen, 
In his 'toocicate caprice, then ; 

But they let him off by paying their scores. 



Then he homeward musing goes, 
And reach his domus in the blues, 

Where his father receives him but coldly ; 
For the Tutor's written home, 
That his son's about to come ; 

But he vows him to face it out boldly. 
' Sir, how is it you're disgraced ? 
I my confidence misplaced, 

When you went, 

And were sent, 
For to read, you said, were bent ; 

But I shall, 

In my will, 
Sir, remember you've done ill ! ' 

* The reader will please to understand, that this song (which 
has been published to music, and may be had at Z. T. Purday'e 
Music- Warehouse, 45, High Holborn, London, or any other mutio- 
teller's) was written before the decease of that pink of Bow-street 
Magistrates, Sir Richard Birnie. 



270 NUTS TO CRACK. 

Then he mutters something more 
About his prospects and the door, 
By which he quickly makes his exit, 
Lest his Pa, enraged, directs it. 
Bell is ringing, * dress for dinner,' 
Very hungry, though a sinner ; 

Soup and turbo t, 

Beef i' the main, 
And John behind him with champagne : 
Tarts and jellies, eau de vie ; 
' You take wine, Tom ? • ' Yes, Pa ! ' says he. 

Then they drank, and laugh' d, and chatted, 
How the Lords and Commons ratted, 

And toasted King William the Fourth. 



THE END. 



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